- HAVANA (Xinhuanet) -- The
United States armed and trained in the Dominican Republic the groups that
rose against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a preliminary
report issued in the Dominican Republic indicated Monday.
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- This provisional conclusion was reached by the Investigation
Commission on Haiti, formed by religious persons and lawyers of several
nations and created in 1991 by the former US Secretary of Justice Ramsey
Clark.
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- "200 soldiers of the US Special Forces arrived in
the Dominican Republic, with the authorization of Dominican President Hipolito
Mejia, as a part of the military operation to train Haitian rebels,"
declared the commission when unveiling the report in the Dominican capital
Santo Domingo.
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- Priest Luis Barrios and lawyer Briant Concannon, both
members of the "independent" commission, presented the preliminary
resultsof the investigation that contradicted the Dominican authorities
which had previously considered "surrealistic and oneiric" the
delivery of US guns to Haitian rebels in their national soil, as some accusations
stated.
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- The report said that Aristide reiterated to the commission
he "had not resigned to the presidency of Haiti and was kidnapped
lastMarch 1 by the government of the United States" to remove him
of power in the face of the rebel insurrection.
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- A member of the commission, Teresa Gutierrez, wondered
"how therebel leaders could train and arm in the Dominican Republic
if thegovernment of Mejia assured several times to his Haitian counterpart
Aristide that he would tolerate no guerrilla movement"in his territories.
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- Barrios said at a press conference that the commission
had a "countless number of reports" proving that the Haitian
rebels were armed and trained in Dominican military camps located in the
eastern locality of San Isidro and the western regions of Haina and Neiba.
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- They also mentioned that rebel Guy Philippe was detained
twice but "immediately released" in the Dominican Republic, in
December 2001 and May 2003, while the insurgent leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain
"was photographed" disguised as a Dominican police.
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- The most scandalous case was the release of the Haitian
rebel Jean Robert after his followers kidnapped 16 Dominicans to demand,successfully,
his liberation despite his connections to the murderof the two Dominican
soldiers in the northwestern province of Dajabon on Feb. 14.
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- The commission that interviewed Aristide in the Central
AfricanRepublic, where he went into exiled after he "resigned,"
will present the definitive report to the US Congress, the Dominican government,
the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community and
Common Market (Caricom), which has not recognized yet the new Haitian regime.
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- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-03/30/content_1390551.htm
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