Focus 580; Human Rights and Politics in Haiti

In this second hour of the program we'll be talking about Haiti about politics and human rights issues there and our guest for the program is Thomas Griffin. He is an attorney. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Morley surname Griffin in Philadelphia. He has been active in a number of areas of the law particularly in immigration law and for quite a while now and he has been working to try to get more information to Americans about Haiti. The great poverty there and the issue of human rights there he leads groups on education and service missions to Haiti and actively supports human rights and justice work there in Haiti. He has a particular interest in human rights and also was part of a delegation that went to Mexico not too long ago trying to devote some attention to an unsolved murder of a human rights attorney there in October of 2001. He was in Haiti last year and in fact produced a report looking at violations of human rights in Haiti. Last fall this is a story a report that was published and put out by the Center for the Study of Human

Rights at the University of Miami Law School and is available through them if you would like to take a look at it as we talk in this part of focus 580 with Thomas Griffin. Questions certainly are welcome the only thing we ask people who are listening is that they try to be brief in their comments just so that we can keep things moving. But of course anybody is welcome to call and join the conversation here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the local number we do also have a toll free line and that means if it would be a long distance call for you if you're listening around Illinois or Indiana anywhere the signal travel or for that matter over the internet as long as you're in the United. States you may use a toll free line that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 W I L L and toll free 800 to 2 to WY Hello Mr. Griffin Hello. Thanks for talking with us. No problem glad to be here. You've been interested in in Haiti for some time. No how did that interest get started.

I had a sort of a historical interest through the nineties when a good friend of mine left his corporate law practice to go and help the government to prosecute the human rights abuses that happened during the first coup against airspeed from 1991 to 1994. So while he was in Haiti for about six or seven years. During the mid 90s to the early you know early 2000 I guess three four. We'll just follow all his work. And then I made my first trip in 2000. I was sort of unrelated It was sort of a spiritual treat when I went through with a group to sort of just get a sense of what it was to live among the poor and. And then later in 2000 I actually went to see the culmination of my friend's work which was the Roboto massacre trial in October November of 2000 which was hailed as the greatest trial in the history of

Haiti. And by international observers as as one of the best trials in the world that year in terms of fairness the rule of law etc.. Well tell me about that specifically about the trip that you made last fall. OK. Gradually I guess since 2000 when I made my first trip I've just become more and more interested in finding out why people starve on a regular basis in Haiti and and and then I decided to see what I could do to try to get the word out and maybe even stop it. With the latest coup against Aristide that took place. Yes and the night of February 28 2004 things started to get really crazy in Haiti and on the street. I made a first investigation about a month later because I had been hearing from my colleagues and different connections I had made over the years that bodies were turning up in the street everywhere that the young boys were turning up in the morgue by the dozens with their hands tied behind their

back and black plastic bags over their heads. But it wasn't making the newspaper so I decided to go and as a leader of the National Lawyers Guild delegation I I was able to document a lot of what I've heard a lot of what I heard and it was it was retaliation or it was or that against Arab steed or airspeed supporters and that's who was turning up in the morgue for people that were seen as Aristide supporters the supporters of the ousted government. And then when I went back I guess and then as the summer went on I heard about more and more things going on. And then things really heated up in about August of. In 2004 when democracy people crying out for democracy started to organize and have peaceful demonstrations and the Haitian national police were actually shooting at them and bodies were turning up on the street again in high numbers and no one was reporting it. Then I heard there was a massacre of 12 boys that were tied together by the Haitian national

police and shot right in the middle of their neighborhood at midday. And yet it wasn't making the paper so I finally said in November I've got to go. No one else is doing it. And so I was sort of compelled to go down and report it. And I took a camera with me and that's what formed the basis of the report that you're talking about that I did for the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Miami Law School. I was I came across a quote that really strikes me as as having a lot to say. This was a quote from Robert Pastore who was director of Latin American Affairs for Jimmy Carter. He said US attention to the region talking about the Caribbean U.S. attention to the region has fluctuated between obsession and disinterest. I have referred to this pattern as a whirlpool a whirling eddy which occasionally sucks the United States into a vortex of crisis where it becomes preoccupied by small neighbors or their leaders. US presidents react to these crises with security political and economic programs that have their

historical antecedents even if the policy makers of the time are not aware of them. Then almost as suddenly U.S. interest and resources shift away from the region and many Americans can hardly recall either their nemesis or the reason for their intervention. And I think it's very telling. It seems to me to be quite accurate and set to also say something both about the way the government approaches the Caribbean and also the way that American news media approach the Caribbean because indeed it's something that product just to take Haiti for example violence flares up and you may see some coverage but then that goes on to something else and there's never really much in the way of context a true try to help people here in this country understand what is going on there and what if anything the United States has had to do right with that country. Right. Yeah that's that's pretty accurate summation. I think there's an incredible amount of disinterest that people are just a couple hundred miles from Disney world are starving to death literally starving to death

just dropping dead in the street. And I think one of might have been hooked on Haiti since my first trip. I was working at a hospital in a rural region and a 10 year old boy had come to the hospital on the back of a donkey with his grandmother and he's 10 years old he weighed 20 pounds for three days I sat with him on his hospital bed just watched him die. I just couldn't believe it. You know I heard about those kind of things but couldn't believe it. And like I said so close to us. And so I think there's incredible disinterest in that because we could stop the hunger there in no time if we were interested. And at the same time a huge I think fear that when a popular government is elected by the poor who are about 98 percent of the population in Haiti incredible. Interest is generated by by the fear of what that means for everyone. I think it's even compounded more in Haiti than even in a place like Venezuela because people are black

and there's huge races that have been going on historically in Haiti between Haiti and the United States for a couple of centuries. And then what you had coming up in January 1st 2004 was the 2 100th anniversary of the first black nation on earth to declare itself a republic an independent. And this was a nation of slaves it's also the first successful slave revolution in the world. The only successful slave revolution the world that became its own independent state and every steed was about to have a huge celebration of that and it meant a lot to people in Africa it meant a lot to former colonies and. And slave nations and there was a meeting in Ottawa in 2003 among policy wonks and international affairs people from our government the Canadian government in France that said we can't let this celebration go on and there was a plan to take out our city before you could celebrate.

There were about a month late. It's a come till February 2004 to get them out. But there was no celebration. No one from the United States Canada France even went to it. And so we so there is there's interest and there's this interest and we're also interested in business. Being able to use Haiti for sweatshops So there's a huge interest and that part of the United States government that encourages that kind of trade policy. Well here we have two administrations both have been active in Haiti and two very different ways. The Clinton administration actually use military force to return. President Aristide in 1994 and then on the other side of this coin there are a lot of people who believe that the second when the second Bush administration came into office they wanted to get rid of Aristide because and there also were conservatives in Congress who agreed who saw him as a kind of another Castro who and they backed opponent his opponents in the country. And

he himself Mr. Aristide says that he did not leave the country willingly in 2004 that he was forced out by the United States. Right. So here we have two different administrations both being active but in completely opposite ways sort of. You do have George Bush the second one didn't his dad work. Clinton was putting everybody back in 94 after being in exile for three years being you know first he was you know he was forced out obviously by a U.S. backed coup and a group called prop and the military dictatorship ruled for those three years. But there was a combination of factors there's a really great movement by advocates for Haiti in the United States that was demanding Aristide's return because he was popularly elected. And there is so much suffering going on down there then. But at the same time. And then a lot.

There were a lot of refugees landing on Florida's shores and I think that was upsetting the people in Florida for maybe not so nice reasons having all these poor black people landing in Florida wasn't really what they wanted and they were because they were escaping the atrocities being committed against the poor. But when and when when Clinton put him back it was under conditions. And arity did resist in those conditions for probably about a year before he got put back. I think if he agreed faster to what Clinton wanted he would have got back in office before in 93 but so a lot of those concessions he had to make were things that hurt his people and things were against his platform such as minimum you know lowering minimum wages having sort of tax free zones where U.S. businesses could invest and basically own sweatshops. And he was very resistant to that but ultimately had to suck it up if you wanted to get back to his people. And that created problems itself in terms of how the people who voted for him looked at him because they see they saw him as someone somewhat of a turncoat or someone who had betrayed them.

And then when Bush got bad the second Bush came in in 2000 things really started to crank up against him. And then over 500 million dollars in loans from the answer American Development Bank were held up by George Bush. And that's when the actually the United States began to physically choke the people of Haiti. And and everybody couldn't get anything done. One of the things that I see referenced in so many of the stories that I read Meg makes this very point about the fact that significant amounts more than a billion dollars in international in aid was promised by the international community and that almost none of it has actually been received in Haiti. How much difference would that have made somewhere along the line do you think if these kinds of promises actually had been fulfill. Oh I think I think it was a part of the multifaceted strategy by the Bush administration and a lot of people in the right wing

Republicans to just to snuff out this deed. And you know he had come to office you know when I was reelected in two in 2000. Based on you know on popular programs such as building more schools building more hospitals fixing the roads and fixing the water systems in Haiti and all that money from the interim American Development Bank as well as from from other sources was going to be for that reason. When George Bush stepped in and for political reasons says I'm not going to give that that aid. Like I said the country was choked. Aristide couldn't make good on his on any of his promises. But at the same time the misery level all the level of starvation the level of curable communicable diseases just skyrocket skyrocketed in frustration set in and it became more tempting and easy in easier sort of an easier turn group of people that one America some United States programs went in there to

try to turn people against their deed. It was easy it was easier to turn them and create it. An opposition where that where there wasn't any and where there should have been any. So you think that the that the United States here was instrumental in helping to organize to fund opposition to our state and that if that things might not be where they are today if that had not happened I absolutely. My report and maybe your listeners could look at it if they're in front of a computer. They could go to w w w dot law dot Miami dot edu slash the s h r. and you will see 60 pages of photographs and investigation of atrocities but you'll also see some very in-depth work as to how the United States was able to use sort of covert methods of turning up creating an opposition where there was not and toppling Aristide.

But one of. One of the sort of great finds I made was that this group called Ifis the International Foundation for electoral systems a well known what they call themselves a democratization group. That's a contract the of USAID had a huge role in Haiti probably over the last 10 years. But over the last five years it was to destroy the government and they did it by infiltrating different existing organizations creating non-existing you know organizations that had didn't exist before wining and dining people taking them on trips taking them on seminars and basically showing them through these seminars. Why are all the bad things about air speed and why Aristide should be in the government anymore. And eventually these oppositions were created and they hooked up very closely with this a

very rich white U.S. citizen sweatshop owner that lives in Haiti named India paid and helped him to create a group called the Group of 184. And that became the largest opposition to to ever stayed in Haiti. But you'll if you read the report you'll see that Ifis actually bought off journalists and turned journalists in the ME. Papers against our state and even co-opted a group called Carlee the French acronym for human rights group that was pretty well known that down there too. And they gave them a lot of money to report abuses act committed by Aristide Aristide's government or the police but not to report any kind of abuses against committed against people that supported our state. So you so you've got that then they turn student groups against deed

and things started to boil over down there and became violent demonstrations started in the street. There has been there has been quite a bit of violence here in particular of last couple of years and when you look at the stories that we see mostly it seems to be reduced to a story of pro Aristide versus anti Aristide. And that both sides have have used violence to try to control some areas of the country the dire state basically these are these are people in the middle class and the ruling elites of the country backed by the former military which Mr. Aristide disbanded when he returned to to the presidency in. 1095 against those people who support him who Jenner and he draws a great deal of his support from the poorest people in the country and then sort of in the middle we have police and UN peacekeepers who don't really seem to be able to do much of anything about it. Does Is that an over. If we say that that's what the situation is is

that in an oversimplification or somehow a glossing over of of what actually is taking place. If it's somewhat accurate there's at least some inaccuracy there I mean there's everyone in Haiti has an opinion whether they're for or against our state. It's just the different levels of it and whether it's violent or political or whatever. But there's plenty of people that there's a good amount of people that want to have stayed back and I think there are elections today Aristide would be elected. But there's I think the overwhelming majority of people say I don't care who my president is I just want to eat today. I want to send my kids to school and I want to drink you know clean water and I want to be able to go to hospital if I get sick and you know that opens the door to you know it's the same that whoever created these conditions is to blame and whoever is going to be new is going to be better. But that's how it's always has been in Haiti ever speed when he disbanded the army disbanded what basically was effectively the

private security force for the elites. And they're frustrated and for 10 years they had no they they were wishing to finding a way to come back while they found a way to come back with this U.S. sponsored coup in February 2004. And then they physically basically put their uniforms back on found trucks had arms and actually started to trolling the streets as a defacto army. And the streets they patrolled in the people they killed were all in the poor neighborhoods. And this started in just right after February 2004. What you also have is in the police force is most of the high command and a couple hundred officers were dismissed to soon as the coup happened against their steeds and they were replaced by former military. So you have this incredibly angry frustrated and poor group of commanders in the police force throughout Haiti and it's a

national police force called the Haitian national police that are SD haters in and former militaries and they're out on a mission and they conduct missions. To kill basically killing the poor the poor neighbors I documented and I photographed it and I watched it happen just in a matter of one week in Haiti in November and it's getting worse. The latest thing is from my contacts and even some film that I've been able to see Haitian national police are handing out machete in a poor neighborhood so they sort of have. The secret secret death squads working with them to kill people in the point of going. We are at a midpoint already. I have a caller will get right to and I should to introduce Again our guest for this part of focus 580. We're talking with Thomas Griffin he is an attorney. He's a founding partner in the firm of Morley Surrey and Griffin Philadelphia. He's worked in a number of areas of law particularly in immigration law when he was at a law firm in

Boston. He coordinated that firm's pro-bono political asylum program serving political refugees from around the globe. He spent two years as a federal probation and parole officer working in the eastern district of New York that's Brooklyn and also. In Boston for the District of Massachusetts he has a special interest in human rights. Recently was part of a delegation to Mexico looking at the unsolved murder in 2000 of a human rights attorney there. He is also interested in getting out information about Haiti and has led groups on education and service missions there he actively supports human rights and justice work in Haiti. And if you're interested in looking at some of his recent work you can take a look at a report that he authored looking at human rights in Haiti Nov 2004. This was put out by the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami Law School and indeed if you go to the University of Miami website and then go to the law school section on there you can download the report and read

it. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have color here champagne County to start us off line number one. Hello good morning. Hi it's very refreshing though very disconcerting to hear this all laid out like this is absolutely brilliant but. You mentioned this meeting what was this a high level meeting between France U.S. and Canada. You were alluding to that said well we can't we can't have the celebration Go ahead. Or was that done under this supposedly democratizing consortium. It was a it was a combination of sort of USAID that the group that the equivalent USAID in Canada called the C I D A. But I think the foreign minister who might have been there. I just don't have all the attendees off the top of my head and some people from France were there and it was. But I think it's just one that's one of the meetings that got out and got public. But I think that it's probably just one of many meetings about

about. Snuffing out any kind of celebration in Haiti about you know it would've been a massive celebration of poor black people celebrating their freedom and their and their power to set themselves free and break the chains and take control of their own destiny which they haven't really been able to do. They did it in 1901 they elected our steed and seven months later in only seven months it took two for the US to help get rid of Arab street and then they brought him back and as you know this time took a little bit longer and they did it a little bit more sophisticated way with it with less guns. So they haven't had time to celebrate in 200 years and that's a major issue the racism and and the fear that the United States has. Do do you reference this in your work or somewhere on your website. It should be in a lot of that's in the report. OK. Have you mentioned this attorney friend you mention his name would this be the sky quickly that does not.

I know Bill quickly. This is Brian Concannon who was the director of the Bureau of avocat International which was which worked with a bunch of. He was the director but there are a bunch of lawyers Haitian and international that work very hard to put together these prosecutions of. Frappe remembers a fry up for our Canadian friends it seems to me that there was a change after Christian and passed it off to Martin even though they're in the same party it seemed that they cleared the way for for the sweat I coom in Haiti. There you know I don't think a lot of people know about the investigation of this UN slaughter and it's the sole a district. Do you know if that's being investigated authentically by the UN in any way. The UN that the July 6 massacre I think so you know they they went in after a lot a lot a lot of associated gang leader named Red Wilma who I actually met on my report and and got got to walk around city to lay with them. But. They went in after him in the most.

You know I was not a law enforcement officer for 10 years. And in the most unprofessional way you could ever think I mean this is a way to take a notorious criminal down without shooting a bullet. They went in and killed him and six of his associates on July July 6. And but killed and injured countless numbers of civilians women and children and a Labor divided states happen to be down there at the time and they rushed over there and extended their trip and began to take photographs of some of these women and children and innocent people that have been slaughtered not put. And then they put out a report one of the most professional investigative reports but they put the word out and then Doctors Without Borders who has a wonderful clinic set up in city so lay just to deal with the wounded victims. Let out the information of the numbers of women and children that were coming in with bullet wounds later that day. So under some international pressure the UN finally started to say

we're going to investigate ourselves. One of the things they admitted to already was that they shot over 22000 rounds of ammunition on that morning raid and we're talking about shooting 22000 rounds of ammunition into literally shocks made out of paper and cardboard. So I mean they don't just go through one house they go through neighborhoods when the bullets start to fly it's unbelievable to even think that the U.N. behave that way. But they're not claiming they're claiming they did some collateral damage but that they haven't said how many people they killed that day. One other thing that I don't think ring off is I understand a lot of Alonso is going to run this father whose name I forget you probably know who he is he's on in jail without charge. This is like a lead story appreciate and thanks very much for your work. OK you're welcome. They call this talking about fathers or Rajon is used to is a very prominent Catholic priest in Haiti who was living in the United States. Towards the end of the Duvalier regime and set up a Haitian

refugee center and did wonderful work for Haitian refugees in Florida. And then when I was Dede was elected in took office in 91 he went back and started to open up his parish again and started work. He was gone and I was the prime minister in jail for over a year without charge as interior minister in jail for over a year without charge. He has become the leader of a lot of a lot of spokespeople. When I was on my investigation in November he was in prison without charge without seeing a judge for over six weeks. And I got into the prison and there's a photograph in my report of him sitting in the prison and just about I can't really say probably three weeks ago he was arrested in a church attending a funeral of a journalist that had been killed and the mob attacked him on an anti Aristide mob attacked him. The police came in to protect him and then threw him in a jail cell and he's been in ever sense without charge without

seeing a judge again. So I think the caller talked about a lot of us running him for president I think they do want him to have a role and to be a candidate but he's in jail so I don't know if it's even possible. We have talked about the fact that there's a good there is a great deal of violence in Haiti today and. There are an awful lot of guns and people willing to use them some of them with political agendas. Some of them I imagine and probably just just criminals before anything could happen. You would have to achieve some kind of stability in society and to at least get the violence to stop or down to some some kind of manageable level. There are some there there are UN peacekeepers there something over 7000 there is a police force but it doesn't seem that they're either willing or capable or some combination of those two to to deal with this violence. What is what would it take if for if for example you said all we want to do is stop the killing.

What would that take. You need and I talk about this in my Pt. I talked about it with all the government officials and UN officials and State Department officials when I was down there doing my investigation. What you need is some dialogue you need someone to set up a tent with tables and with pictures of water and bring in everybody to discuss what's going on and what people need. They don't you know they don't want one. It's that the cheaper and safer way to do this. But what they do is they just send arms. United States has just been I think a couple million dollars worth of arms to the police and Haiti. They just don't want to talk. And that's the big problem you know. I think what's going to happen is if you invite. Someone to represent the poor masses to the table. They're going to have the power and what they want is going to really mean something. So until the lobby a lot of sort of the movement the mass movement of the

poor is snuffed out they don't want to set up that table. They want to chasten people and make people afraid to even think about talking about determining their own destiny and giving some sovereignty sovereignty to these people. That's why all their leaders are in jail without charge without seeing a judge. That's why they shoot into peaceful demonstrations because who's ever going to speak out. Because if you speak out you'll be arrested. And if you march you're going to be shot at. So they're doing a great job of really chastening this group and then maybe they'll have some dialogue but I don't think. Job is finished. And there's got to be some more violence before they start to talk about about about talking to each other. The other thing they're doing is they're rushing to these elections. They have about 10 percent of the electorate has actually registered an election for president and parliament is supposed to take place in October November. There's not even a candidate who has been mentioned yet but they're pushing and pushing for these

elections as if that will bring peace. Lob a lot of people don't want the elections because their candidates are in jail and no one no registration offices have been set up in the poorer neighborhoods. So they they know that they would be pretty much knocked out of any election. And I think to a large extent the elites don't want free and fair elections because whenever there's been a free and fair elections in Haiti their candidate doesn't win. So this violence is profiting the status quo down there and the people who eat and the people whose factories have electricity and stuff like that are the ones who who are rich and who control the police and the army. And that points to just underscore that it points to a major major problem about Haiti and that is the enormous gulf between the rich and the poor. Most of the. Table of the country being poor and about the top is something I think I've read something like the top 1 percent of the population controls almost half of the wealth in the country and almost everybody else is poor. Most Haitians

crushingly poor. Oh yeah I'd say the majority of Haitians don't. Well that the statistics show they live on less than a dollar a day but they don't have running water in their houses. Even a middle class family you can't. They might have a sink but no water runs out of it. Their electricity is nonexistent in the poor neighborhoods and is only you know sparse. And the more middle type neighborhoods. So we're talking about. Yeah and grinding abject kind of poverty that where everyone's tiptoeing along a tight rope every day and one little calculation goes wrong. Someone someone in your family dies from from disease or starvation where you talked about what would have to happen to stop the violence would have to be a true sort of a sitting down with people who would be representing the interests of all of the various people and that the interests of the poorest people in most disadvantaged people would have to be represented and would have to be addressed. Something that you

say the elites don't seem to want to do and have maybe have never really wanted to do. They're his I've been I think some criticism a. If people on all sides though that says something like Even if such a meeting could take place there doesn't seem to be anyone who has a real plan who actually seems to know what to do has really some ideas about Try to about how to change restructure Haiti try to develop its economy try to deal with the basic needs of people. Do you do you think that that is true or is there someone who actually does have a plan. I probably have to agree with that too to a large extent. I don't know if anyone's ever given the opportunity or the time to make that kind of kind of plan. And the people that can do it are currently locked up and the other one that could do it was doing a pretty good job of it has been forced out of office and now is in exile and so after. And that was that their elected president I mean they had a pretty good government in place

that was bringing peace to the country but it just wasn't ever able to start its programs running because it was constantly under attack from the United States from violent means to to to you know so-called course of means. So it basically had its legs cut out from under but those kind of people do exist. But now you're getting to a state where if you are that kind of person that can help the country if you're educated and you can think why stay in Haiti anymore. I mean you know it's time to leave. And so the huge brain drain in Haiti anyone who graduates from the university tends to come to to to get out of there. There's no because there's no jobs. So it's tough it's a cycle that feeds on itself. We have someone else to talk with here. Line 1 below. Hi harry you if anything I admired your perseverance. But not to sound like a Cassandra. I'm not sure. You said earlier on that you wanted to see if you could do something you have gone down there and you wanted to see if you could do something for the people of Haiti. Do you really do you think you've

accomplished anything. I don't mean to sound like I'm a pessimist but I think I think you know it's hard being you know a white guy. Yeah. And have a family and a job you know to actually have any real effect on what goes on on the ground in Haiti and what I sort of see my ability or my mission that and something that I can contribute to is to tell the world and to tell my you know my fellow citizens united states exactly what's going on right off the shores of Florida and to not you know you see enough pictures of starving babies and if you look at my report people with bullet holes in them and people rotting in the morgue teenage boys rotting in the morgue because they turned off the electricity so they write it so they rot faster. And them and identify them. That that's that's what I see what I what I can do and I would love it if what I say in the pictures I

take and the presentations I make effects one or two people and gets them to make a call to Senator or Congressman or or or anything I go to Haiti or contribute some way to a school or an orphanage or something down there. You know I did. The reason I said that I don't want to sound like I'm a pessimist but I really admire what you're doing. I just it just seems to me like I think a lot of people the United States sort of look at it. I use these to kohls places third world so like Rwanda then I can go. What's all that about. There's so many Internets in arguments and like David NJ ask you know does anybody have a plan to do anything about this you know within the country and you know your response was accurate. No not really but somebody's got to figure this out. And it seems that it's almost seems hopeless in the sense that it seems to be because I was in the Special Forces 35 years ago in a sense in time in several countries and I that was back when Papa Doc and Baby Doc were running the show down there. And I serve a member like these are these places ever going to be straightened out and it just seems like.

You know. And list sort of events and the advance against these you know like you said the mass that the average person who's basically in between the power structure and the you know outsiders who come in to try to influence them and I don't think I was going to I was just add one point of it's relevant or not but the John Fales did a film years ago called men with guns and it's about some sort of you know nondescript third world country in Central America and it basically says a lot of what you say. And just in a more of an art sense that I really really admire what you're doing and I just want to say that THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Does one plan mean I guess we got to watch it with sort of sort of being maybe racism or lead to racist or are our leaders saying they can't have they can't fix themselves you know which get us. An excuse to stay down there. I think running a country and taking sovereignty over your people on your land is you know in a big picture it looks like it would be complicated. But you know every country in the world has done it. You know it's been

done I don't know a couple hundred times on how many countries around the world if he decided you know besides being poor and black they can take care of themselves and they can and they can do it. But they've never been allowed. They've physically politically economically never been allowed ever to do it. This constant has been constant intervention by the French wars occupation by the United States several times incredible amount of crushing debt illegal crushing debt imposed on them by France which was a big part of this coup because France didn't want to pay the reparations they owed. They've never been allowed to. I have absolute control of their own country of their own land of their own people. Except for one moment when there are free and fair elections in 1990 and they elected our steeds. And when that wasn't the US can that candidate that want the machinery started only took seven months to destroy a popular elected government.

I mean they just literally have never been left to take care of themselves they're constantly being being attacked and they can do it but we have to be willing to unselfish fully run humanitarian programs down there without any agenda. We want the president to be and until that happens it's going to keep happening. Well if that coup had not taken place there after our state was elected the first time 1990 and he served less than a year if that had not taken place and he had had the opportunity to serve out his his first term as president then you're now in Haiti you can't serve consecutive terms that's why he had to sit one out before he came back and was right again. If he had been allowed to serve out that first term what do you think he would have done. And I suppose it's hard to imagine Haiti would be worse off but do you think that Haiti would be better off. I think you know absolutely I mean that was it was a joyous place when he was elected and that

joy lasted you know until he was used taken out. And it was just the fun you know for the first time in 200 years those people were feeling like we were in control of our own destiny. There's someone in the presidency who became president because he loves us and loves our country not to get rich. You know not to kiss up to the United States or anyone else. It was a powerful feeling in Haiti and it could have gone on I think I think people started. The people who had left the country started. That could contributed to the kind of study going back doctors lawyers business people started to see some hope but it just never just never got going. This fall elections are supposed to be held in local and municipal elections in October parliamentary and presidential elections in November and they. There is a process of going on now a registration process trying to get Haitians registered to vote. But given everything that we've

talked about so far what do you think the likelihood of these elections actually actually taking place would be. They won't be free fair and popular elections. There's no way that it's impossible. And the next up a couple of months to turn that country around and make them free fair and popular elections so I can see them going I mean I can see them going on the UN's whole mandate there to sort of to legitimize this puppet government which we haven't even talked about I mean Haiti has a government but it was completely chosen by an international group of people and some very elite Asians. So they're going to have I think they're going to have elections but it's not it's going to be so easily attackable this is going to be no legitimacy to it and I think the international community is going to recognize that that you know when you disenfranchise. You know the majority of the people. And don't let the real candidates run because they're in jail. I don't know how you can really look at it as real but there's been no alternative plan.

Well the government is in place in NO and has been since 2004 when Aristide left or was driven out depending on how you want to describe what happened. I don't know that that government was ever really considered to be anything other than a place holder. Was it did anybody really think that that was a serious government. Well I mean I don't know that it's that's all they got. You know I think it had to be considered serious and I think a lot of torts who left his poolside chair in book of Aton to go with us to go back to Haiti he was making you know wonderful speeches I love my country's in crisis I'm going to go help but he hasn't done anything he's been pretty much a buffoon he hasn't really made any speeches in public he hasn't visited any neighborhoods where the people really live. He's made a bunch of international trips trying to please the different leaders that have put that put him in power. But. You know it just makes people angry and angry or

that they have this kind of kind of government in place. Police doing justice in the street. I just don't know. It's just very poor planning. And I think something else that we touched on a bit is you know we know what is there a long term plan or is there someone who could think about a long term plan to fix Haiti. You've got this group which was backed by the United States Canada and France had a very short sighted and selfish plan which was to get everybody out but not to say well we can do when he's gone and now they've got this incredibly incredibly huge mess on their hands. Tons and tons of blood on their hands and don't know what to do because the international community knows it was the choice of United States France and Canada to have that government. And we continue to back it I mean there's never any comment by the United States that what's happening down there is wrong. What what did Aristide say or what did he propose that made people in in these countries

France the United States Canada think that he was so dangerous here people in the United States particularly conservatives people on the right saw him as some as I said in the beginning they saw him as almost being another Fidel Castro and said well we've got to get rid of this guy because he's just much too dangerous. What did he say. He didn't really get a chance to do very much. He wasn't president all that long when he was elected the second time. By that point they were there. Seems like there was so much on rest. The army was out there as just an almost independent armed agent supporting his opponents. I wonder did he ever get a chance to do anything to even demonstrate the fact that he might be dangerous. As far as some people can probably add maybe one the most dangerous things he did was to disband the army. But it was probably like one of the worst armies in the world and it basically always had its guns aimed. I'm not against foreign invaders but against its own people committing atrocities. But that was that was sort of a significant event because the elites

lost their private security force when the when the Haitian army was disbanded. The only other thing sort of that sort of was well known is that he raised the minimum wage and he started to enforce labor laws in many sweatshops that were down there and things that and also he for the first time in history of Haiti started to enforce the tax laws down there and wanted business people to actually pay taxes to the government. We're talking a country of 8 million people and a city with maybe a couple million with one one traffic light. You know we're talking you know one tribe that there's no public works there's no public sort of Fisk and he's always asking for these people that make millions and millions of dollars to pay their taxes. And that really made them mad because they get to live in Haiti. You know for decades without ever having having to do that so those are two two little things. The big thing that France was upset about was that he was demanding 21 billion dollars of Rep reparations for the one hundred fifty million dollar payment

that he was forced to pay to friends and 18 25 want to became independent. Yeah and when when it became independent it can be became independent in 18 0 4 but France threatened to re-invade and we enslave an 18 25 if they didn't pay the hundred fifty million million dollars in gold. So he didn't. I didn't pay it and it goes to what I was all talking about before they've been in debt ever since. I mean a huge portion of the gross national product has gone to pay off its debt on this long. So an Arab steed had actually and had filed the suit in international court to get this money and it was looking very bad for France and France that actually established a committee to look into the suit and to defend the suit. But it was looking bad and it wasn't you was a clear check of one hundred fifty million dollars was illegally forced out of Haiti and it was pretty sort of a clear cut suit.

And I think what they were worried about was how bad France would look especially a place that considers itself such a liberal country for doing what it did. They didn't want to lose 21 billion but I think what the reverberations around the world for colonized and Bloc countries would have would have been huge. I mean it only would have been a revolutionary event to hear that someone actually paid for slavery and paid the price. So I think that was a scary adventure for France. Canada owns a lot of land and a lot of business. But a Canadian does Menno own huge amounts of land in factories in Haiti and airspeed being a popular leader. It's just not. It just doesn't go with business only they didn't think so. We're going to have to stop here I'm afraid because we've heard the end of the time that we have a caller that I can't take for people who are interested in. Looking at this report we mentioned a couple of times by our guest Thomas Griffin. You can go to the website of the University of Miami Law School and look at this report Haiti Human Rights investigation November 11 through 21 2004 by our

guest Thomas Griffin he's an attorney in Philadelphia works in immigration law among other areas is particularly interested in human rights with a focus on Haiti and has been now doing some work in that country for some time trying at least to get Americans to be aware of the problems of poverty there has led to a number of groups on education and service missions there and has continued to talk about it and that's in part how it is we ended up with this report that again you can read by going to the Law School University of Miami website. Mr. Griffin thanks very much for talking with us today we appreciate having you.