The U.S. State Department is preparing contingency plans for a coup in Haiti, according to a relief agency memo to other non-governmental organizations.

The email was sent out on Dec. 19 by Joan M. Maruskin, who works at Church World Service’s (CWS) Immigration and Refugee Program in Washington. She wrote that “State has contingency plans prepared” for a coup or civil war in Haiti. “There has been a request from State for names and contact information of organizations with people on the ground in Haiti, who can help should the crisis occur,” Maruskin wrote, asking groups to contact her.

The request came from a “higher than mid-level” State Department official she met informally at a retirement party. “She didn’t say that a coup was imminent,” she told Haïti Progrès, “but clearly the State Department is watching Haiti closely right now.”

Meanwhile, a well-placed official in Washington, who requested anonymity, told Haïti Progrès that “there is a naval blockade planned for Haiti if there is a major refugee outflow.” The encirclement is above and beyond the usual U.S. Coast Guard’s refugee interdiction measures which most recently intercepted and returned home 72 Haitian refugees on Dec. 17. The “blockade” entails a “reinforced” naval ring, which was “set up by the Defense Department three or four months ago.” Furthermore, any large outflows of refugees would be housed at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, as they were during the 1991-1994 coup d’état, according to Pentagon plans. “Enemy combatants” from the on-going war in Afghanistan, a categorization concocted by the Bush Administration to skirt international law, are also being illegally held at Guantanamo.

Maruskin was immediately peppered with calls and emails from people questioning whether CWS was supporting Washington’s campaign to topple the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. “That wasn’t my purpose at all,” she said. “We just want to help if there is an outflow of refugees, to see that the people are protected, have food and clothing, and are cared for.”

She added, however, that in Washington’s government circles, “they don’t like Haiti.”

On Dec. 22, some three to five thousand demonstrators marched through the streets of Port-au-Prince to call for Aristide’s ouster. Opposition-aligned media like Alterpresse and Radio Métropole inflated the numbers of opposition marchers to “tens of thousands” while the Associated Press’s anti-Aristide correspondent Michael Norton only pumped it up to 10,000. The official police estimate was 3,000.

In response, a much larger crowd of several thousand Aristide supporters spontaneously surrounded the National Palace, the Haitian people’s regular response to the opposition’s coup-threatening demonstrations in recent weeks.

Two people were killed in clashes between the two demonstrations under circumstances that were not clear at press time.

“A growing number [of opposition demonstrations] employ street violence as the means and proclaim the violent overthrow of the elected government as the end,” said a statement of the broad-based Let Haiti Live Coalition, released Dec. 22. “Some demonstrations have been led by prison escapees convicted of crimes against humanity, others by supporters of former dictatorships or leaders of coup attempts. Anti-government demonstrators have thrown rocks, swung clubs, attacked government buildings and occasionally shot bullets into pro-government crowds.”

“The majority of Haitians have seen enough political violence in their history to reject a non-electoral solution to the political crisis,” the statement continues. “They have taken to the streets by the tens of thousands to protect their hard-won but still nascent democracy. Regrettably, a small minority of pro-government demonstrators have also employed violent means.”

The statement, which seeks to change the U.S. government’s hostile and arrogant posture towards Haiti, notes that “the Haitian government, like other democratic governments, has been accused of corruption and mismanagement. These accusations should be judged, as in other democracies, by the voters, not by mobs. They should be decided in Haitian voting booths, not in foreign embassies.”

The Let Haiti Live coalition, which represents over 100,000 North Americans, said that it “is most deeply concerned that the U.S. has covertly and overtly supported the very forces that are now calling for the destruction of Haiti’s hard won democracy. It called on Washington to “immediately and forcefully reiterate its support for Haiti’s Constitution and elected authorities. It should make it absolutely clear that our government will not support any group advocating violent or anti-constitutional change in Haiti. It should ensure that no U.S. funds support any group advocating such change, or any group engaging in or supporting violent activities. It should investigate and prosecute any activities on U.S. soil that support unconstitutional change in Haiti.”

North American and European diplomats, Haitian opposition leaders, and even the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), a New York-based “human rights” group which has often lent its service to Washington for demonization campaigns against Haiti, have tried to discourage world leaders, like South Africa’s, from attending Haiti’s bicentennial celebrations. “We refuse to be party to efforts that seek to obliterate the history and achievements of African people in the continent and elsewhere in the diaspora,” the South African government responded in a Dec. 18 statement. “We will not join in the fray that seeks to deny the people of Haiti the right to claim their heritage! Consequently, both President Mbeki and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will indeed join the peoples of the world and Haiti in celebrating this bicentenary.”