The governments of the U.S. and the Dominican Republic aided and abetted in the arming and training of dozens, possibly hundreds, of Haitians in the Dominican Republic to overthrow the democratically elected government in neighboring Haiti.

This was the conclusion of the Haiti Commission of Inquiry after a four-day fact-finding trip to the Dominican Republic.

The six-member delegation announced its preliminary findings to a packed press conference at the Renaissance Jaragua Hotel in Santo Domingo on Mar. 29, 2004. The charges sparked a storm of controversy and debate in the Dominican press. The issue is a highly charged one during an already supercharged presidential campaign. President Hipòlito Mejia, whose approval rating is lurking at about 6%, is fighting for his political life against a host of challengers in elections set for May 16.

“Our purpose has been to investigate when, where, why and how the leaders of the so-called rebel forces were able to train and arm themselves in the Dominican Republic, despite the Mejia government’s repeated assurances to the Haitian government over three years preceding [the coup of ] February 29, 2004 that no such guerilla movement was being harbored or tolerated here,” said delegate Teresa Gutierrez of the International Action Center (IAC). “We also want to understand how the leaders of the so-called rebel forces were shielded from arrest, despite being convicted in Haiti and other countries.”

The Haiti Commission of Inquiry is an organization which was first formed in 1991 on the initiative of former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark following the first coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It has been revived today following Aristide’s kidnapping and exile by U.S. troops on February 29.

The delegation also pointed to the role played by the U.S. government in the Dominican theater of operations. Former U.S. Special Forces soldier Stan Goff said that Operation Jaded Task, which deployed 200 U.S. Special Forces soldiers along the Dominican/Haitian border in February 2003, “was anything but routine,” as the Pentagon has declared.

Noting that the supposed “counter-terrorism exercise” was conducted closer to the border than any previous U.S. military exercise (thanks to a secret special authorization issued by Mejia), Goff said that it involved an “unusually large American military task force” in a zone from which anti-Aristide guerrillas were carrying out regular attacks against Haitian government facilities. “It’s happening at that particular time raises some very serious questions,” he said.

The delegation met with close to 40 people including Dominican journalists, lawyers, priests, academics, government officials, former government employees, former military officers, political party leaders and community leaders.

It also met with Haitian citizens and officials who had fled for their lives, “Refugees from the town of St. Marc described for us what happened there on February 29,” said Kim Ives, a journalist with Haiti Progrès and a member of the Haiti Support Network. “Seven young people, including two pairs of young brothers, were macheted or shot to death by pro-coup forces. The mutilated bodies were then paraded around the town and dragged by a rope behind a truck to terrorize the rest of the town’s population. They were then burned.”

Brian Concannon, a former United Nations human rights official and lawyer who has helped prosecute torturers and killers in Haiti over the past 8 years, outlined the illegality of the coup and the Dominican Republic’s legal obligations under the Organization of American States charter to not accept or abet an unconstitutional power transfer in another member state.

“Support for the coup by the United States, the Dominican Republic and other countries was illegal under international law including the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States,” explained Dr. Luis Barrios, who was a missionary in the Dominican Republic for nine years and who today is a professor of criminal justice at John Jay College in New York City.

Barrios is also a prominent community leader in New York’s Puerto Rican and Dominican communities as well as an acting priest in the Episcopal Church. After he read the Commission’s preliminary report in Spanish, a well-known right-wing TV personality disrupted the press conference by shouting that the delegation had been sent by Aristide to sow trouble between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Jeered by the rest of the press corps and responded to by Barrios, the heckler soon left the room.

Father Rogelio Cruz, a hugely popular liberation theologian priest of national stature, also attended the press conference and expressed strong support for the Commission’s work.

Katharine Kean, a film director who has made several films about Haiti, was a part of the delegation as its documenter. Along with Ives, Concannon, and two IAC members, she had traveled to Bangui, Central African Republic March 7, the first visit of a delegation to President Aristide after his exile. She then stayed in Bangui after that delegation left but returned March 15 with Aristide to the Caribbean on a chartered jet in a delegation led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). A message from Aristide that she filmed on that trip will be shown during an April 7 event at Brooklyn College’s Whitman Theater. Waters, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and delegates from the Haiti Commission’s trip to the Dominican Republic will also speak at the event.

In Our Bicentennial Year
How Haiti’s Sacrifice is Uniting the World
by Marguerite Laurent

So much innocent Haitian blood has been spilled since January 1, 2004. But throughout history, Haitian blood has paved the way for African dignity and survival. It’s a crushing weight, but one that we and our ancestors have borne as Haitians over the past 200 years.

We have witnessed a river of blood and senseless killings, detentions and arbitrary arrests. Despite it all, 2004 is already Haiti’s miracle year: she has united the African Union and CARICOM.

Like founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ army, we are rising. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Vilpin has suddenly cancelled his “triumphant visit” to Haiti because his government suffered a major loss in the French elections. We have to wonder whether the French electorate is sending the French government a message about its military intervention into Haiti. The French are beginning to realize that the Haitian people’s demand for $21.7 billion in restitution hasn’t gone away, despite the coup d’état orchestrated by the U.S. and France on February 29, 2004. In fact, the cycle of debt, dependency and foreign domination tearing Haiti apart for 200 years has been highlighted by the intervention. All the world can see how the constant interference by the Euro/U.S. nations is intended to keep Haiti impoverished.

The blood of the African ancestors is at work.. Frantic and desperate pressure by the neocon clique – Roger Noreiga, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice – has failed to move CARICOM... for now. Its 15-member nations, along with Venezuela, have refused to recognize the de facto government which Washington set in place in Haiti.

Dessalines’ army is rising.

Despite ten years of a constant U.S./Euro destabilization campaign from 1994 to 2004, Haitians still built more schools than ever in Haiti’s history. We built hospitals and public parks in the poorest neighborhoods. We put more electricity in more towns than ever before. The government recognized the Vodun culture. It brought the literacy rate down from 85% to 48%. It recognized Kreyòl as one of our official languages, and Haitians wrote more books in Kreyòl than ever before. Haitians from the diaspora sent to Haiti more than $850 million a year. These are our accomplishments. We may celebrate them. They are the facts hidden behind the headlines. Let’s not forget our miracles accomplished despite the past ten years of U.S./Euro destabilization.

In 2004, despite imperialism’s coup d’état in Haiti, let us commit to:

1. Celebrate our ancestors’ great victory and our rich Vodun-based culture. Despite the lies, Black civilization, beauty, law and justice in Haiti shall rise.
2. Empower the poor and now disenfranchised in Haiti. We shall continue to mobilize human rights monitors to help save the lives of the Haitian poor, who are now in the greatest jeopardy since the last U.S.-backed dictatorship years in Haiti.
3. Mobilize the vote against Bush, Jr. We shall continue to mobilize the Haitian-American vote and to connect it with the grassroots U.S. movement working to reclaim U.S. democracy. We will lift the boot Bush has put on our Haitian dream for democracy, on our people’s neck in Haiti and on those “indefinitely detained.” This time the Black vote shall count!
4. Support the people of Jamaica for their stand for Haitian democracy. Let us thank the nations of CARICOM and the African Union who recognize that the will of the Haitian majority was not respected by the powerful nations in the world.
5. Call for the $21.7 billion debt owed by France to Haiti not to be forgotten. This restitution, on the contrary, should be expedited;
6. Call for the murderers, ex-army and FRAPH mercenaries to be deported to the U.S. or France where they may join their bosses;
7. Use this opportunity to show the world that democracy in Haiti is not just about President Aristide. The Haitian people, and Haitian women in particular, have a right to life, shelter, security, education, health care, justice, and freedom of association and speech.

Coup d’état or no coup d’état, Haitians have the richest culture in the Western Hemisphere and defeated Napoleon, Britain, Spain and a U.S. embargo back in 1803. We were the first to put liberty into application in the Western Hemisphere. No other. That is part of what it means to be Haitian. That is the Haitian identity that has survived embargoes, 32 U.S./Euro sponsored coup d’états and slavery before that. We shall overcome this U.S./France orchestrated coup d’état also. No matter how many dollars and euros France, Canada and the U.S. mobilize against us, we will continue our struggle for liberty and rights for the wretched of Haiti and the earth.

Marguerite Laurent is a Haitian-American poet, author, dancer, and lawyer living in Connecticut. She heads the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network.