The US gov..............has always had a keen interest in Haiti.........Papa Doc........a Cia coup..........



As explained by Kim Ives, a journalist with Haiti Liberté, in 1991, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was inaugurated as the first democratically elected president of Haiti. Eight months later, he was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup. Then President Clinton was forced to bring in 20,000 US troops, not to stop the coup, but to stop a revolution developing because of the coup. Ives explains that “the Clinton administration brought Aristide back as a sort of hostage on the shoulders of 20,000 US troops, and they remained until about 1999.” 

Aristide was reelected in 2000. According to Ives, a coup started again when Aristide “was inaugurated on February 7, 2001, involving Contras based in the Dominican Republic and diplomatic and economic embargos.... They forced him out at gunpoint, essentially. A team of US Navy Seals came in and kidnapped him from his home in Tabarre on February 29th, 2004. And he’s been in exile ever since.” 

While the US government has not always done what is in Haiti’s best interest, either politically or economically, the outpouring of contributions from average Americans since the devastating earthquake shows that the American people want to be of real help. Ives suggests several organizations that have good histories, without the corruption that has plagued Haiti generally. They include the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, (www.haitiaction.net), Dr. Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health (www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti), the Lambi Fund of Haiti (www.lambifund.org), and Doctors Without Borders (www.doctorswithoutborders.org).