posted on February 23, 2004 09:10:25 PM new
W.'s Christian Nation
How Bush promotes religion and erodes the separation of church and state
By Chris Mooney
Issue Date: 6.1.03
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In November of 1992, shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president, a telling controversy arose at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association. When a reporter asked the governors how their party could both satisfy the demands of Christian conservatives and also maintain a broad political coalition, Mississippi's Kirk Fordice took the opportunity to pronounce America a "Christian nation." "The less we emphasize the Christian religion," Fordice declared, "the further we fall into the abyss of poor character and chaos in the United States of America." Jewish groups immediately protested Fordice's remarks; on CNN's Crossfire, Michael Kinsley asked whether Fordice would also call America a "white nation" because whites, like Christians, enjoy a popular majority. The incident was widely seen as exposing a rift between the divisive Pat Robertson wing of the GOP and the more moderate camp represented by then-President George Herbert Walker Bush.
Fast-forward a decade. Republicans have solved their internal problems, and the party is united under our most prayerful of presidents, the born-again believer George W. Bush. Though not originally the favored candidate of the religious right -- John Ashcroft was -- Bush has played the part well. Virtually his first presidential act was to proclaim a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving; soon he appointed Ashcroft to serve as attorney general. Since then the stream of religiosity from the White House has been continuous. With the help of evangelical speechwriter Michael Gerson, Bush lards his speeches with code words directed at Christian conservatives. In this year's State of the Union address, Bush mentioned the "wonder-working power" of the American people, an allusion to an evangelical Christian song whose lyrics cite the "power, wonder-working power, in the blood of the Lamb" -- i.e., Jesus.
Bush also uses his office to promote marriage, charitable choice and school vouchers as conservative Christian policy objectives. Yet he has never endorsed, at least not explicitly, the time-honored religious-right claim that the United States is a Christian nation. Nor has he seconded Pat Robertson's cry that the separation of church and state is "a lie of the left." "There are a lot of libertarian Republicans and business-oriented Republicans who would be really turned off by that sort of rhetoric," explains John C. Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who specializes in religion and politics. Bush strategist Karl Rove, a political-history buff, presumably remembers the Fordice debacle.
But could Rove and Bush, through their diligent courting of the Christian right, be moving us toward a form of Christian nationhood anyway? To see what's new and dangerous about Bush's approach to religion, you have to look beyond the president's copious prayers and exhortations, which are legally meaningless. Clinton also showed immense political sympathy for religion, but he didn't nominate a slate of right-wing judges who could give the law a decidedly majoritarian, pro-Christian bent. And Bush has gone further than that. From school-prayer guidelines issued by the Department of Education to faith-based initiatives to directives from virtually every federal agency, there's hardly a place where Bush hasn't increased both the presence and the potency of religion in American government. In the process, the Bush administration lavishly caters to the very religious-right groups that gave us the dubious Christian-nation concept to begin with.
Consider Bush's faith-based initiative. In October 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services doled out $30 million to 21 religious and community groups as part of the faith-based program. Sure enough, $500,000 went to Pat Robertson's religious charity Operation Blessing. In addition, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a grant of $700,000 went to the National Center for Faith-Based Initiative, founded by Bishop Harold Calvin Ray, who has declared church-state separation "a fiction." Another $2.2 million went to Dare Mighty Things, a group affiliated with Chuck Colson, a Watergate felon turned evangelist who tries to convert prison inmates to Christianity and has the ear of the Bush administration. All of the religious recipients of Health and Human Services grants were connected to Christian ministries, mostly evangelical ones.
These grant allocations suggest that while Bush may not say he's forging a Christian nation, at the very least he's blending church and state to fund Christianity. And Health and Human Services is just one government agency now engaged in promoting faith-based initiatives. Under Bush, notes Americans United Executive Director Barry Lynn, the departments of Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and Education all "are issuing regulations, guidelines and other directives that promote religion." Bush has also placed influential religious-right figures in his administration. Consider a few little-noticed examples. David Caprara, the head of AmeriCorps* VISTA, directed the American Family Coalition, a faith-based social-action group affiliated with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Kay Coles James, a staunch anti-abortionist who was formerly a dean at Pat Robertson's Regent University and senior vice president of the Family Research Council, is now director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which monitors the federal workforce.
But the nexus of the religious right in the administration may be Ashcroft's Justice Department, which is well positioned to effect pro-Christian legal changes. Until recently, Carl Esbeck, who helped to draft the charitable-choice provisions of the 1996 welfare-reform legislation and directed the Center for Law and Religious Freedom at the conservative Christian Legal Society, headed the department's faith-based office. Over the years, Esbeck has been a leading lawyer and legal thinker involved in laying the intellectual groundwork for the Bush administration's current merging of church and state.
Something similar can be said of Eric Treene, formerly litigation director at the conservative Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who was appointed in June 2002 to serve as the Justice Department's special counsel for religious discrimination, a newly created position. According to Yeshiva University law professor and church-state specialist Marci Hamilton, Treene has been "in the trenches of trying to get religious entities special privileges under the law." No wonder the conservative Christian group Faith and Action, which seeks to remind legislators about the "prominent role that the word of God played in the creation of our nation and its laws," celebrated Treene's appointment as "a new day for Christians in Washington."
So far Treene has proved responsive to groups seeking to amplify legal protections for Christians. For example, following a complaint by the archconservative Liberty Legal Institute of Plano, Texas, Treene headed an investigation of Texas Tech University biology professor Michael Dini, who had promulgated a policy requiring that students seeking medical-school letters of recommendation from him be able to "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question, "How do you think the human species originated?" Despite the fact that recommendation writing is a voluntary activity, this was deemed discrimination against creationists. After Treene and the Justice Department opened their investigation, Dini changed his policy.
Treene also recently helped file a brief in a Massachusetts district court case arguing that a high school had engaged in "viewpoint discrimination" when it refused to allow Christian students to pass out candy canes distributed with religious messages. This time the Justice Department drew upon work by the Alliance Defense Fund, a "unique Christian legal organization" based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that was founded by Focus on the Family's James Dobson and other religious-right leaders. So forget about counting the mentions of God in Bush's speeches; it's legal coordination between the Bush administration and the religious right that could truly cause Thomas Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state to crumble.
Even when working in the federal government and responding to Christian-right legal groups, however, lawyers can only go so far to make America more hospitable to Christianity. To achieve their objectives, Christian conservatives have long realized they need sympathetic judges on the bench as well -- judges whose worldviews are suffused with religiosity. Judges, in short, such as Antonin Scalia.
In a January 2002 speech at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Scalia cited his religious views in order to defend the death penalty. He further argued that democracy has a tendency to "obscure the divine authority behind government" -- a situation that people of faith should approach with "the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible." As Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz wrote in a New York Times critique, Scalia "seeks to abandon the intent of the Constitution's framers and impose views about government and divinity that no previous justice, no matter how conservative, has ever embraced."
Bush has explicitly stated that he sees Scalia and Clarence Thomas as models for his judicial nominees. And most of them do fit the mold. On the church-state front, the most outrageous example is the nomination of Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor for a seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor is notorious for his defense of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who has steadily fought to post the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. Almost as troubling is University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell, one of the intellectual giants behind the "accommodationist" approach to the First Amendment's religion clauses, who was confirmed for a post on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnell's exaggerated notion of religious free exercise led him to criticize a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling revoking Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, which he dubbed a failure "to intervene to protect religious freedom from the heavy hand of government."
Many of Bush's other judicial nominees, such as Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen, have also been resolutely championed by religious conservatives. "A few of [the nominees] have specific histories on religion issues," explains People for the American Way legal director Elliot Mincberg. But the religious right, he adds, is "smart enough" to realize that conservative legal positions tend to come together in one package.
Granted, in some sense the Bush administration is only building upon previous legal and social trends that have brought church and state closer. Despite our thoroughly "godless" Constitution, as Cornell University scholars Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore have put it, these aren't very good days for strict church-state separation. Over the past 15 years, explains Vanderbilt University law professor and First Amendment specialist Thomas McCoy, the Supreme Court has gradually modified its church-state jurisprudence, especially when it comes to whether government money can go to individuals who then choose whether to distribute it to religious organizations. Last term, the court used this "neutral aid" approach to uphold an Ohio voucher scheme, a ruling that would have been unthinkable three decades ago.
Simultaneously, religion has seeped into American political life, often on a bipartisan basis. Clinton, after all, signed into law a version of charitable choice as part of the 1996 welfare-reform bill. He held prayer meetings regularly and declared that an atheist could not be president of the United States (despite the Constitution's ban on religious tests for public office). Clinton's views on religion were shaped by Yale University law professor Stephen Carter's 1993 book, The Culture of Disbelief, which argued that American society had come to exclude the religious from public life, a wrong that required remedying. In a 2000 legal article, Yeshiva University's Marci Hamilton called Clinton "the most religiously activist President in history" -- up until that point, anyway -- and accused him of being "oblivious to [James] Madison's warnings that all entities, including religious entities, are likely to abuse their power in the political process."
Still, there were limits to Clinton's attempt to make government friendlier to religion. Consider Clinton's and Bush's starkly opposed approaches to the contentious issue of school prayer. In 1995, Clinton's Department of Education released a set of school-prayer guidelines based on a consensus document drafted by groups covering the political spectrum, from the liberal People for the American Way to the conservative Christian Legal Society. The guidelines sought a balance between the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment, noting that students may engage in private religious speech, including prayer, but cannot harass other students or direct speech at a captive audience. School employees, meanwhile, should neither discourage nor encourage such speech.
The Clinton guidelines were legally accurate and had a reputation for helping school districts. Nevertheless, this February the Bush Department of Education -- headed by Rod Paige, who recently stumbled into a Fordice-style church-state brouhaha when he suggested that Christian schools instill better values than public ones -- released a new set of school-prayer guidelines. This time liberal and moderate groups weren't consulted. But two leading religious-right figures, Jay Sekulow of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice and Ken Connor of the Family Research Council, claimed involvement in the drafting process.
The new guidelines advance a skewed picture of the law that favors the religious right. As the American Jewish Congress' Marc Stern protested in a letter to Paige, the guidelines "make no concession whatsoever to the rights of the captive audience" when it comes to school prayer, in the process misrepresenting the state of court rulings on the question. When it comes to church and state, "The Clinton people reached out to all segments, and really did attempt to work on consensus issues," says People for the American Way's Mincberg, who was involved in drafting the consensus statement that led to the Clinton prayer guidelines. "The Bush people are reaching out to their political allies only."
How much damage could Bush do in the long term? When it comes to the separation of church and state, one is always dealing with a slippery slope -- the notion that government involvement with religion will make it easier for more government involvement with religion to occur. That is, after all, what the framers were trying to prevent. But provided that you're willing to think in these terms, the picture is fairly clear. "The goal here," says American United's Lynn, "is to erode the vitality of the church-state separation principle, to get a lot of judges in place who have trouble distinguishing between that which is illegal and that which is sinful, and to put in place regulations -- and perhaps later statutes -- that make it easier to require Americans to pay for the Christianization of the country."
That's the goal of Christian conservatives, anyway. Yet it may not be Bush's conscious objective. Although religiously devout, his highest calling is re-election. And as a source of fundraising, grass-roots manpower and sheer votes, the religious right is crucial to that push. Karl Rove has explicitly stated that when it comes to turning out the white, evangelical Republican base in 2000, "There should have been 19 million of them, and instead there were 15 million of them. So 4 million of them did not turn out to vote."
"I don't think Bush has set out to reshape church and state relationships, but by doing the kind of politics that he's been doing, there are some strong implications," says the University of Akron's Green. Those implications were summarized, in their most radical form, by Pat Robertson in his 1992 book, The New World Order. There, Robertson wrote, "There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world." America is certainly on top of the world, and with George W. Bush in the White House, religious conservatives are standing there with him.
posted on February 24, 2004 04:34:57 AM new
ah, but they only protecting the embassy? Nobody cares about the people of this country. Cant for the life of me figure out why.
posted on February 24, 2004 06:12:27 AM new
Voodoo Religion
The spirit world thrives in Haiti. These images show the descendants of African slaves who were transported to Haiti beginning in the mid-1600s. French masters forced the slaves to embrace Roman Catholicism, but the slaves resisted, secretly keeping alive their own gods—often in tandem with Catholic saints. Voodoo, a religion of spirits, evolved as Haitians suffering economic hardships and political unrest continued to evoke a world of unseen forces. In the face of death and life’s uncertainties, Haitians daily call upon loa (spirits) to intervene in the course of their lives. They are in touch with what many of us know only in our dreams.
Photographer - Jean Claude Coutausse
"After photographing war scenes so often, I felt compelled to involve myself in projects
where I could gain a deeper understanding of people. I suppose that is the reason why
I decided to focus on religion—the mythical and the sacred, something hidden and precious
for people. In short, I wish to photograph the invisible after having shot the obvious for years."
Piety and practicality mix atop the head of a pilgrim at the spirited festival of Vyéj Mirak
(Virgin of Miracles). The worshiper indicates his reverence by not actually wearing the hat,
yet he protects it from being lost or trampled. The annual celebration commemorates an
apparition of the Virgin Mary—or her voodoo counterpart Ezili, the goddess of love—atop
a palm tree. Some pilgrims attend church; most congregate at the town’s waterfalls to wash
in the sacred waters and partake in voodoo ceremonies.
Finding serpent and cross in the same cemetery on All Saints’ Day, when Haitians venerate
their ancestors, photographer Jean-Claude Coutausse was fascinated. Reviled by most Christians,
snakes get a warmer reception from voodoo worshipers, who see the reptile as an emblem
of the loa Damballah-wédo—one of the most powerful of all spirits.
Brooms ready to chase away undesirable spirits, members of a secret society
celebrate All Souls’ Day. Lapped by flames, the cross and ritual honor Baron
Samedi, a loa of the dead. Voodooists enrich their tradition with Christian symbols
and practices. The Catholic Church, however, sees voodoo as an abomination to be stamped out.
Dancing to the forceful rhythms of drums, voodoo worshipers slip into trance-like
states at an annual ceremony honoring the Rada loa, a family of benevolent spirits
from West Africa. Worshipers strive to reach an altered state so loa will ride their
bodies. Once a person is possessed, the loa can make its wishes known by speaking
through the person’s mouth and directing the person’s body. Oungan (priests) and
mambos (priestesses) recognize each loa by its manner of speech and interpret the
loa’s advice, admonitions, and requests.
Snared in the tight grip of a hunsi (assistant to a voodoo priest) a white pigeon will be a
sacrifice to the Petro loa—powerful Haitian spirits that can offer protection or turn violent.
They demand sacrifices of birds, hogs, goats, bulls, and sometimes dead bodies from tombs.
Participants in Petro rituals often prove their devotion by embracing danger, waving their
hands in blazing fires or dancing on hot embers.
posted on February 24, 2004 04:50:36 PM new
Helen thanks for the post from National Geographic.
(Wonder why that guys hat is on backwards?) lol
Seriously though, will all the talk about religions and the freedom of it, I dont think Christians in this country regard voodoo as a religion and think of it more as devil and demonic worshiping. Am I right?
Linda, what do you think of the religion of Voodoo?
neuroter, Christians *should* see voodoo as a religion. Actually, it's a mixture of Catholicism and ancient African religion.
But, for saying that, some Christians who are narrow minded and intolerant may give me the evil eye and put a hex on me.
posted on February 24, 2004 07:58:06 PM new
neroter - Since helen has answered for me...guess I won't need to now huh?
The only thing I know about voodoo is what I heard as a child when they spoke of voodoo dolls and what they used them for. Their practices, be they considered religious or not, have never interested me enough to investigate them.
posted on February 24, 2004 08:31:28 PM newneroter asked me....
"Helen thanks for the post from National Geographic."
" (Wonder why that guys hat is on backwards?) lol "Seriously though, will all the talk about religions and the freedom of it, I dont think Christians in this country regard voodoo as a religion and think of it more as devil and demonic worshiping. Am I right?"
Then she went on to ask,
"Linda, what do you think of the religion of voodoo/"
That question, I didn't answer but saved just for you. Looks like I should have answered it too. Hahaha
posted on February 24, 2004 09:06:33 PM new
helen - When you edit your post, again might just want to spell neroter's name correctly, especially since you put it in BOLD letters. And from past posts, I believe your HE is a SHE.
posted on February 24, 2004 09:28:27 PM new
Linda, you stated,
"Your side has wanted, and continued to call for ALL reference to any form of religion being allowed in the schools....that's the issue here, helen. And my position is clinton saw that differently. PERIOD....end of discussion."
Is that what you really meant to say? As you know, that is not my opinion.
posted on February 24, 2004 10:30:15 PM new
I'm sure that most people reading this little exchange will not fault me for not "moving on" without first defining what your refusal to edit represents.
Refusing to edit a false remark after being asked politely to remove it is deliberately deceitful and unscrupulous.
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Bily Prezidan, 22, and his gang of slum toughs are girding to fight for what little they have, what little President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has given them.
''Aristide doesn't have money to do much, but he does his best,'' said Prezidan, one of four bosses of the feared pro-Aristide gunmen who control the capital's sprawling Cité Soleil slum. ``If he had more time, he could do more.''
As rebels press their 20-day-old drive to topple Aristide, Haiti's police have been melting away virtually everywhere, surrendering government control of the northern half of the country.
U.S. officials estimate the 4,000-member police force is down to 3,000 agents. In 1995, Aristide abolished the army that forced him out of power from 1991 to 1994.
But if the rebels attack Port-au-Prince, as they have vowed to do shortly, they may well run into gunmen like Prezidan, one of the pro-Aristide militants widely alleged to have been armed by the government and known as chiméres, after a mythical dragon.
''We are the military of Aristide,'' said Prezidan, the father of two girls, a 2-year-old and five-month-old, as he showed off the pistol in his belt.
Aristide recently handed out some 4,000 weapons to civilian supporters from stockpiles in the basement of the National Palace and bought 2 million rounds of ammunition from a Latin American country, according to one U.S. security expert monitoring Haiti.
''I want to see Aristide finish for five years. I worked for that. I voted for Aristide,'' Prezidan said in broken English. ``Nobody is going to take that away.''
SUN CITY
For Prezidan and his chiméres, it's Aristide who brought the real sunshine to 250,000 people in the festering slum with the pretty name that translates as Sun City.
Their homes, a combination of tin shacks and crude cinder-block structures, are crammed into an area that backs into the ocean.
Their lives revolve around survival, either from bloody turf battles or hunger. Until Aristide took office, first in 1991 and again in 2000, they were nothing more than the poorest citizens of the hemisphere's poorest nation.
But the former Catholic priest brought dreams of a better life. And he delivered with some of the promises: a paved road to replace the pot-holed dirt path filled with rubbish; a park with a patch of green grass, the only place where anything grows; two new schools; and a renovated St. Catherine Leboure Hospital.
The chiméres have been accused of being little more than drug-dealing gangs armed by Aristide to terrorize his opponents, break up their street protests, and fire off their guns at night near the homes of opposition leaders.
Prezidan denied those accusations but admitted his chiméres sometimes disrupt opposition demonstrations -- but only because the opposition disrespects Aristide.
''Maybe I don't have no money, but I am the same as the rich,'' he said. ``I never understand the dream of the opposition. What plan do they have for the poor, for the children?''
And he's ready to battle the rebels.
NOT AFRAID
''Guy Philippe can't come here,'' Prezidan said of the former police chief who is one of the leaders of the rebellion. ``We want him. If he comes, he dies. The police are afraid. But we are not. We have the power.''
Prezidan, who also calls himself ''Avenger,'' claims he heads a group of 30 armed young men that he calls ''Solution.'' With the help of the three other bosses in Cité Soleil, including his older brother, ''2Pac,'' they can quickly mobilize thousands of gunmen into the streets.
''Philippe says he's got 200. You know how many people are waiting for him here? We've got 2,000,'' Prezidan said. 'If Cité Soleil says `no more,' it's over.''
OTHER STRONGHOLDS
Jean-Maurice Edourd, an administrator at the hospital in Cité Soleil, said the shantytown is just one of several Aristide strongholds ready to defend the capital from rebels.
''It's not just Cité Soleil, but also La Saline and Matissand,'' he said of two other large Port-au-Prince suburbs.
The Cité Soleil bosses use traditional Haitian rara bands, which play during carnival, to mobilize the crowd and youngsters to chant to the beat: ``Aristide for five years.''
Some of the slum's children also know how to become a boss of chiméres. ''You've got to go to school and learn,'' Lando Duvergla, 15, said. ``You have to be liked by the people in the area. You have to put security in the area and don't waste the money that you have in your hands. And buy guns. You have to buy guns and play music so people can dance.''
posted on February 25, 2004 09:55:10 PM new
Rebel: 'We're Going to Arrest Aristide'
MICHAEL NORTON
Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Foreigners fled Haiti amid looting in parts of the capital Wednesday as pressure mounted for an international intervention and for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down.
Rebel leader Guy Philippe told The Associated Press the insurgents want to "give a chance to peace," indicating his troops would hold off, for now, attacking Port-au-Prince. But then late Wednesday he called a radio station with more warlike words.
"We're going straight for the National Palace where we're going to arrest Aristide," Philippe said in a call to Radio Vision 2000 in the capital from the rebel-held city of Cap-Haitien in the north. "It will be over very soon."
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Haiti was scheduled for Thursday. President Bush said the United States is encouraging the international community to provide a strong "security presence," and France said a peace force should be established immediately for deployment once a political agreement is reached.
Foreigners tried to flee the country and isolated looting erupted in the capital. Aristide supporters set dozens of barricades that blocked roads throughout Port-au-Prince, though there was no sign of the rebels.
The rebels have overrun half of Haiti. In the AP interview earlier Wednesday, Philippe said the rebels were taking a wait-and-see approach to proposals to send international peacekeepers.
"If they do not attack the Haitian people, we won't attack them," he said. "If they come to help us to remove Mr. Aristide, they will be welcome."
Philippe estimated his rebel force had grown from a couple of hundred to 5,000 with new recruits and more ex-soldiers joining the 3-week-old popular uprising to oust Aristide, and said they were ready to fight.
As the rebels plotted their moves, leaders of Haiti's political opposition rejected an international peace plan that diplomats had billed as a last chance for peace, and asked the international community to help ensure a "timely and orderly" departure of Aristide.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urged the "immediate" establishment of an international civilian force.
"This international force would be responsible for guaranteeing the return to public order and supporting the international community's action on the ground," Villepin said. "It would come to the support of a government of national unity."
Jamaica's U.N. ambassador, Stafford O. Neil, said at the United Nations it might be possible to dispatch a small "interposition force" to keep the rebels and Aristide supporters apart.
One U.N. diplomat noted the rebels can come to Port-au-Prince only by two roads, so placing such a force would be relatively easy and would buy time for a political solution.
De Villepin said he was to meet Friday in Paris with representatives of the government and the opposition. Opposition leader Mischa Gaillard, however, said it was unclear when they would be able to leave Haiti because of the political chaos.
The roadblocks across Port-au-Prince were intended to stop the rebels who began the uprising Feb. 5, but militants at the barricades also used guns and stones to stop cars and steal handbags, luggage and cell phones. Police did not intervene.
Looters struck two warehouses in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, stealing $200,000 worth of medical equipment and food from one and $300,000 worth of tropical wood from the other.
Overnight, a small fire broke out in a car dealership. A suburban bar was set ablaze, and two nearby shops were vandalized.
American Airlines delayed three of its five daily flights to the United States because crew and passengers were having problems getting through the roadblocks. Air Jamaica canceled its flights to Haiti.
Guy Lockrey, an auto worker from Flint, Mich., abandoned his car at a barricade and headed to the airport on foot with his suitcase when police picked him up.
"We didn't feel any tension until we got close to the capital," said Lockrey, who had been helping to build a church in west-central Haiti.
There was word earlier Wednesday that U.S. Marines, who arrived Monday to protect the U.S. Embassy, would escort a convoy of U.N. personnel, but there was no confirmation that such an operation was undertaken. The United Nations has ordered all nonessential staff and family to leave.
Britain and Australia have urged their citizens to leave, following similar warnings from the United States, France and Mexico. There are about 30,000 foreigners in Haiti, 20,000 of them Americans.
Canada and the Dominican Republic sent small teams of troops to protect their embassies. Canadian Maj. Mike Audette said the Canadians would join soldiers sent Tuesday to prepare for the possible evacuation of more than 1,000 Canadians.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints evacuated the last of its 56 non-Haitian missionaries. "We're hoping to come back when there's peace," said Joel Tougas, a church elder from Deep Cove, Canada.
On Tuesday, Aristide warned that thousands could die if rebels tried to take the capital. At least two men were shot to death Wednesday in Cap-Haitien - one for allegedly looting, another for supporting Aristide, and the Red Cross raised the overall death toll to 80, at least half of them police.
Aristide on Saturday accepted an international peace plan under which he would remain as president but with diminished powers, sharing the government with his political rivals.
It appeared the international community was reconsidering its insistence that Aristide remain president. Two Western diplomats said they and colleagues were preparing a request to ask Aristide to resign.
In his statement, de Villepin stopped just short of calling for Aristide's resignation.
"As far as President Aristide is concerned, he bears grave responsibility for the current situation," de Villepin said. "It's his decision, it's his responsibility. Every one sees that this is about opening a new page in the history of Haiti."
An opposition politician said foreign diplomats told the Democratic Platform not to say that the international community had rejected their counterproposal.
The counterproposal, sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Colin Powell, would install a Supreme Court justice as interim president and ensure Aristide's "orderly departure."
In Washington, the top U.S. envoy for the hemisphere, Roger Noriega, told legislators that if a political solution cannot be reached, "they'll consider many things, they'll consider a whole gamut of options, but they do not want to go in and simply prop up Aristide," according to Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.
Bush indicated an international force may be needed to provide security in Haiti, possibly as a way to enforce a diplomatic and political solution. And he reiterated that the U.S. Coast Guard will turn back any Haitian refugees trying to reach American shores.
Hours later, a freighter with 22 Haitians on board was intercepted by the Coast Guard off the coast of Miami. Coast Guard Lt. Tony Russell would not confirm reports that the boat had been hijacked or that the Haitians were seeking asylum.
posted on February 26, 2004 04:41:16 AM new
LOL UN, what a great organization.... such power and importance... yep we should sure keep propping them up...
posted on February 26, 2004 06:03:20 AM new
Max - I'd be interested in hearing what you think the US should do with this situation.
I understand clinton supported Aristide being in power. Please correct me if I'm wrong. In your article he's referred to as a 'militant'. The opposition are referred to as 'rebels' and I've heard some refer to them as 'thugs'.
Other than trying to insure thousands of people are killed, by one side or the other, what should the US do now, in your opinion.
-----------------
twelvepole - The article said: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urged the "immediate" establishment of an international civilian force. Hey....you think France might just send in THEIR troops, or THEIR civilians? LOL
It continued: Jamaica's U.N. ambassador, Stafford O. Neil, said at the United Nations it might be possible to dispatch a small "interposition force" to keep the rebels and Aristide supporters apart.
To keep them apart? The UN ran out of Iraq at the first sign of fighting....and they're going to do differently here? I doubt it.
posted on February 26, 2004 08:32:58 AM new
Linda,
The U.S. or any other International ORG. can legally do nothing at this moment or than the political pressures currently taken.
If it becomes a slaughter house there, then Yes i believe we should help ( because the UN 's Socialist bureaucracy will take a YEAR to move )with the Major Humanitarian needs that will exist.( By slaughter house i mean absolute total non political chaos, not the current INTERNAL political struggle.) Other than that Nothing more than we and EVERYONE ELSE is doing, "Lip service".
Here in Miami the Hatians are protesting AGAINST Aristide. The only Information available on radio (spanish) is all against him too. Also b!tchin about clintons' ties( maybe kerry too ,not sure yet)
From what i gather the Opposition is one faction and the Rebels are another. Truthfully there is a major lack of info that makes it impossible to see if this is a good uprising or just more of the same sh!t.
I want to add, Do not take at face value all the pandering and accusations. There are international regulations concerning interventions and the U.S. ( contrary to popular belief ) does follow it by the book.
[ edited by keiichem on Feb 26, 2004 08:34 AM ]
posted on February 26, 2004 10:03:57 AM new
Thank you, Max - That's what I mean...it's so hard to know who the 'good guy' is. Meaning who has their nations best interests at heart, especially when one hears so much conflicting information.
posted on March 2, 2004 07:57:16 AM new
This is an excellent analysis including links to information about the situation in Haiti and it's relation to Venezuela, the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Xymphora
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
I've been intending to write about the approaching coup in Haiti (excellent short background summary here, and excellent long one here ), a coup which has beenpredicted for a while now, particularly in an excellent seriesofarticlesinthe Black Commentator by Kevin Pina. Then I intended to write about the conspiracy angles of the coup, but these have already been covered by the mainstream American media (even Drudge covered it for a while, until someone probably told him to cool it), proving again how easy the Bush Administration makes conspiracy theory. It appears that the material advantages to the Bushites of stealing Haiti are few, except for some enticing sweat shop action, but there are three main non-economic purposes of the coup:
1, As a rehearsal for the second coup attempt in Venezuela;
2. To keep the leaders of the Caribbean and Central and South America on their toes and on their best behavior towards the United States, and discourage any opposition to neoliberal policies favored by the American leaders (and any interference in the CIA's drug trade); and
3. Just to show it could be done after the abject and embarrassing failure of the coup in Venezuela, much as Ronald Reagan's attack on Grenada was a failed attempt, after a sound thrashing by a group of peasants in Vietnam, to prove the United States still had a penis.
With the failed attempt in Venezuela and the kidnapping in Haiti it is now possible to draw up an outline of what I assume is the contents of Otto 'Third' Reich's handbook on coups (Reich and Roger Noriega are almost certainly behind the plotting), an outline which will be useful in countering future attempts:
1. The first step is to finance and train the coup plotters. In both Venezuela and Haiti the coup plotters (or here ) received material help from the United States, and were given refuge in the United States and military training in American schools (the aptly-named - so aptly they had to change the name - School of the Americas plays a big role in this). At the same time, aid and access to capital is restricted or denied to undermine the popularity of the elected leader (the IMF/World Bank thugs are used to deny aid and restructuring of debts).
2. The second step is to tell the disgusting American press to write the usual background of lies. The democratically elected leader is portrayed as a dictator and a thug, and the rabble opposition are portrayed as patriots yearning for democracy. In the case of Haiti, the coverage was obviously suspect because the disgusting American media was never able to explain why the fighters, the 'rebels', were not connected to the political opposition, and only grudgingly allowed that the background to both groups was the paramilitary thugs of Haiti's recent past.
3. The third step is to weaken the state through attacks by American-financed guerilla warfare in the hinterlands. The rebel successes in this war are exaggerated by the disgusting American press, and the conflict is depicted as forming a threat to Americans living in the country.
4. Where Venezuela differed from Haiti, and it is a crucial difference, is that American troops were never overtly in the country (although the CIA certainly was there, and American ships and planes were in the area). When the coup plotters grabbed Hugo Chavez, his personal courage meant they could not force him to resign, and his continued support by the military meant that he was able to regain control. His supporters rescued him before the plot could be carried out. The plan was obviously to put him on a plane just like Aristide, and remove him permanently from the country. The key to the coup in Haiti was that the Americans learned their lesson from Venezuela, and learned they could not rely on the local coup plotters to do their jobs. American troops were sent in, ostensibly to guard the safety of Americans, but were really there as a kidnap squad.
5. The fifth step, which is simultaneous with the fourth, is to have the disgusting American media report that the democratically elected leader has resigned. This creates the legal basis for the regime change, and also disheartens the supporters of the leader, who are fooled into giving up the resistance to the coup. The Washington Post was caught red-handed engaging in this deceit in the case of Venezuela, when they reported Hugo Chavez had resigned when in fact he had not. The disgusting American media were obviously instructed to do the same thing in the case of Haiti, reporting that Aristide had resigned, a lie that was only uncovered by reporting in Australia, by Agence France Press, and by some members of the so-called alternative media (it made the American press only because of Maxine Waters ). It must be extraordinarily embarrassing to be an American journalist.
6. The sixth step, one where the Americans have learned another lesson from the debacle in Venezuela, is not to appear too eager to step in. Allow the covertly supported rebels to do their work, and pretend to stand back from the whole mess. At the same time, add an air of legitimacy by having some international stooges (Canada and France) support your position. Pretend to be engaging the opposition in a dialogue and looking for a compromise, all the while knowing that the opposition will not compromise because it knows what is coming.
7. The last step is to officially send in the American troops. The troops were sent in hours after Aristide had been kidnapped. Had they been sent in hours before Aristide had been kidnapped, they could have stopped the theft of democracy from the people of Haiti. American actions make completely clear the real American attitude towards democracy.
Leaders subject to this kind of attack should:
1. Immediately hire a good, well-connected American PR and lobby firm, to counter the lies told by the disgusting American press. These lies are so laughable that they should be easy to counter. In the case of Aristide, the slander that he was not democratically in power was based on a very small number of election irregularities, 7 (!) seats out of 7,500, which Aristide had promised to correct, but was unable to do so because of the failure of the opposition to cooperate. The failure of the international organizations controlled by the Americans to help Haiti contributed to the economic problems of the country, and allowed complaints about Aristide's failure to improve Haiti. He was obviously set up to provide the basis for the lies about his supposed wrongdoings told by the disgusting American media.
2. Ensure that there is a rescue plan in place for recovery of the leader in case he is snatched. Leaders should never be enticed into leaving an appropriate level of protection by their own people.
3. Get international peacekeeping troops in as quickly as possible. In the case of Latin America, the obvious troops would come from other Latin American countries.
4. Never, ever, allow even a few American troops into your country, even on the pretext of protecting the lives of Americans. Even a small group of troops can be an effective kidnap squad.
Aristide's mistake was to fail to see who his real enemy was. The one good thing that has come out of the attempted coup in Venezuela and the kidnapping in Haiti is that all the peoples of the Caribbean and Central and South America now know that the United States is an enemy of democracy and human rights, and will act ruthlessly to continue its exploitation.
posted on March 2, 2004 08:41:47 AM new
AP News: 3-2-2004:
Haiti:
President Bush announced today that Haiti would receive $3 billion in aid and that Halliburton will be contracting to re-build the country. All this was announced after oil had been discovered in the territroial waters off Haiti.
