[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H905-H907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        BUSY TIME IN WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it has been a busy 14 days here in 
Washington. We began with the President of the United States, according 
to the Los Angeles Times, explaining how the export of jobs is 
beneficial to the economy. Two days later, he was followed up by the 
chairman of the President's Economic Advisory Council, Mr. Gregory 
Mankiw, who explained to the other body that we have to face that in a 
global economy, it is inevitable that there will be a loss and shortage 
of jobs. I am not able to give the precise details of the reaction of 
the committee that heard that testimony.
  And then thereafter the distinguished chairman of the Federal Reserve 
Board, Mr. Alan Greenspan, explained that even though we are 
hemorrhaging money, the deficit is growing, the surplus has 
disappeared, and we have to do something about it, that this 
legislative body is going to have to put its foot down.
  Where, the question arose, should we end the tax cuts for the upper 1 
percent in our American system? No, he said, not only was that probably 
good, but that it should be made permanent. Then pray tell us, Mr. 
Greenspan, where would this reduction come from? Well, it would come 
from looking into Social Security. It is time we realized that perhaps 
these benefits are excessive and that they are being paid out too 
early. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Greenspan.
  My dear colleague, who is unfortunately not on the floor, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns), touted the benefits of the Leave No 
Child Behind Education Act, a bill that I thought was pretty important. 
It was explained to me by Members on my side of the aisle in both the 
Senate and the House, the same provisions that he described that were 
going to be so excellent. But the problem, we are underfunding the bill 
by $8 billion a year.
  Mr. Speaker, at this point I move to the recent problems in the 
western hemisphere, and I will include for the Record a number of 
statements about Haiti and what we ought to do about it.
  The long and short, of course, is that we have an obligation to 
support the resolution introduced by the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Lee) to determine what the truth is about Haiti and that we have 
an independent bipartisan commission on Haiti to find out whether we 
impeded democracy or indeed contributed to the overthrow of a 
democratically elected government; what were the circumstances that 
brought about the alleged resignation and what was the role of the 
United States Government in bringing about the departure; and to what 
extent did the United States impede efforts by the international 
community, and especially the Caribbean community, CARICOM, to prevent 
the overthrow of an elected government in Haiti.

                              {time}  2045

  What was the role of the United States in influencing decisions 
regarding Haiti at the United Nations Security Council, and was there 
U.S. assistance provided in the personnel or weapons for the forces 
that were used against Haiti?
  These are just a few very important questions that kind of coincide 
with some destabilization efforts going on in Venezuela, where the 
democratically-elected President is undergoing a very serious set of 
difficulties, that it looks like, it is said, it is being reported, 
that the United States, believe this or not, is having a role and 
something to do with the destabilization.
  I yield to the distinguished member of the Committee on International 
Relations, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to applaud the gentleman for 
his leadership over the years in terms of issues surrounding Haiti. Let 
me just conclude by asking a question. I know the gentleman does not 
have time to respond.
  Presumably elections are going to be held in Haiti. Has Secretary of 
State Powell or the White House communicated to the gentleman when they 
anticipate those elections to be held? And if so, is there anything in 
the gentleman's knowledge that would impede President Aristide from 
returning from wherever he is and running once more for the President 
of that devastated, poor country with such a tragic history?
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the documents I 
referred to earlier.
                                                    March 9, 2004.

 Truth Commission--The Responsibility to Uncover the Truth About Haiti

       Dear Colleagues: Today we will introduce a resolution 
     calling for an independent commission to uncover the facts 
     about the Bush Administration's involvement in the recent 
     coup d'etat in Haiti. There are questions that Members of 
     Congress need answered regarding this Administration's 
     involvement:
       1. Did the U.S. Government impede democracy and contribute 
     to the overthrow of the Aristide government?
       2. Under what circumstances did President Jean-Bertrand 
     Aristide resign and what was the role of the United States 
     Government in bringing about his departure?
       3. To what extent did the US impede efforts by the 
     international community, particularly the Caribbean Community 
     (CARICOM) countries, to prevent the overthrow of the 
     democratically-elected Government of Haiti?
       4. What was the role of the United States in influencing 
     decisions regarding Haiti at the United Nations Security 
     Council and in discussions between Haiti and other countries 
     that were willing to assist in the preservation of the 
     democratically-elected Government of Haiti by sending 
     security forces to Haiti?
       5. Was US assistance provided or were US personnel involved 
     in supporting, directly or indirectly, the forces opposed to 
     the government of President Aristide, and/or United States 
     bilateral assistance channeled through nongovernmental 
     organizations that were directly or indirectly associated 
     with political groups actively involved in fomenting 
     hostilities or violence toward the government of President 
     Aristide?

[[Page H906]]

       There are many more questions that must be answered. We 
     believe this Administration has, in essence, carried out a 
     form of ``regime change,'' a different variation than it took 
     in Iraq, but still regime change. Accordingly, we must 
     uncover their actions. The American people and the 
     international community deserves to know the truth, and the 
     people of Haiti deserve a fair shot at democracy.
       We call on all of our colleagues to support this resolution 
     calling for a bipartisan independent commission. I apologize 
     for the short notice; however, if you would like to be an 
     original cosponsor of this bill or have any questions, please 
     call Aysha House (Lee) at 225-2661. The deadline for original 
     co-sponsorship will be 7:30 p.m.
           Sincerely,
     Barbara Lee,
       Member of Congress.
     John Conyers,
       Member of Congress.
                                  ____


                        Haiti: Immediate Demands

       --Freedom of movement and association for Pres. Aristide, 
     and disclosure of the terms obtained by the U.S. for his stay 
     in Bangui.
       --Recognition that as Pres. Aristide was forced out through 
     the improper use of force to compel him to leave Haiti, he 
     should be free to return to Haiti as president to implement 
     the OAS/CARICOM agreement he accepted, especially now that 
     peacekeepers are in the country.
       --Sanctions should be imposed against the leaders of the 
     coup d'etat against Pres. Aristide, and their arrest should 
     be ordered. Assurances should be obtained by the Congress 
     that the U.S. intelligence community is not providing 
     assistance to the insurgents.
       --An investigation should be carried out by the GAO into 
     the use of U.S. funds to train and establish opposition 
     coalitions and opposition media committed to ousting Pres. 
     Aristide from power and to rejection of the constitutionally 
     mandated elections process in Haiti.
                                  ____

       A delegation from the United States met twice today with 
     overthrown Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 
     Bangui, Central African Republic. Following the first 
     meeting, President Aristide held a news conference at the 
     Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then conducted a 30-minute 
     phone interview in English with Pacifica Radio's Democracy 
     Now.
       The delegation includes Kim Ives from Haiti Progress and 
     the Haiti Support Network, and Johnnie Stevens and Sara 
     Flounders from the International Action Center. Ives, 
     Flounders and Stevens are representing former U.S. Attorney 
     General Ramsey Clark. Also on the delegation are Brian 
     Concannon, acting in the capacity of President Aristide's 
     lawyer; and Katherine Kean, a friend of President Aristide.
       Aristide's press conference today and his meeting with the 
     U.S. delegation constituted a remarkable turnabout from the 
     day before when the delegation was barred by the Central 
     African Republic government from meeting with Aristide. 
     Following the refusal to give the delegation access to meet 
     with the ousted Haitian president, a press release entitled 
     ``Aristide Under Lock & Key'' circulated around the world. 
     Thousands of individual activists and organizations submitted 
     the press release and statement to local media throughout the 
     United States in a high-visibility emergency mobilization to 
     tell the truth. The Central African Republic officials have 
     made it clear that their country is under severe pressure 
     from the United States and France.
       The Curtain of Silence that has surrounded President 
     Aristide since the February 28/29 coup has now been 
     significantly opened as a consequence of this political 
     intervention. The world, and especially the Haitian people, 
     has been anxious to hear from President Aristide. It is 
     precisely for this reason that the U.S. State Department and 
     the French Foreign Ministry have applied so much pressure to 
     the Central African Republic to prevent him from having 
     access to the media, and to his attorneys, friends and 
     supporters.
       The delegation arranged for President Aristide to be 
     interviewed by Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now. Amy Goodman of 
     Democracy Now introduced today's interview with these 
     words:
       ``Moments before the Democracy Now! interview, Aristide 
     appeared publicly for the first time since he was forced out 
     of Haiti in what he has called a US-backed coup. The 
     authorities in the Central African Republic allowed Aristide 
     to hold a news conference after a delegation of visiting U.S. 
     activists charged that the Haitian president was being held 
     under lock and key like a prisoner. The delegation included 
     one of Aristide's lawyers, Brian Concannon, as well as 
     activists from the Haiti Support Network and the 
     International Action Center, representatives of former U.S. 
     Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Shortly after they arrived in 
     Bangui on Sunday, the delegation attempted to meet with 
     Aristide at the palace of the Renaissance. The CAR government 
     rebuked them.
       ``Shortly after, the country's foreign minister held a 
     press conference in Bangui. Armed men threatened journalists 
     in the room, warning them not to record the minister's 
     remarks. Mildred Aristide, the Haitian First lady, was 
     brought into the room, but was not permitted to speak. The 
     CAR foreign minister told the journalists that President 
     Aristide would hold a news conference within 72 hours. Hours 
     later, Aristide was allowed to address journalists.
       ``In his interview on Democracy Now!, Aristide asserted 
     that he is the legitimate president of Haiti and that he 
     wants to return to the country as soon as possible. He 
     details his last moments in Haiti, describing what he called 
     his `kidnapping' and the coup d'etat against him.''
       In his press conference and in the direct meetings with the 
     delegation, ``President Aristide was very forceful about the 
     fact that he was kidnapped, and that his government is being 
     replaced by a U.S.-sponsored government of occupation,'' said 
     Sara Flounders of the International Action Center. President 
     Aristide also said that ``only his return to Haiti can bring 
     peace, and he stated that the people who carried out this 
     campaign against his government are internationally 
     recognized criminals.
       ``President Aristide said that he had been lied to by the 
     U.S. ambassador, who assured him that he was being taken to a 
     press conference to talk with international and Haitian 
     media. He was instead forced onto a plane and taken out of 
     the country in a U.S. coup d'etat,'' according to Flounders. 
     ``President Aristide also pointed out the irony that Haiti, 
     which only has 1.5 doctors for every 11,000 people, now has 
     seen the closing of its primary medical school and that 
     school is now being used to house U.S. Marines and other 
     foreign soldiers.''
       President Aristide expanded on this point both in the press 
     conference and in his interview on Democracy Now!: ``In my 
     country, after 200 years of independence--we are the first 
     Black independent country in the world--but we still have 
     only 1.5 Haitian doctors for every 11,000 Haitians. We 
     created a university, we founded a university with the 
     faculty of medicine that has 247 students. Once U.S. soldiers 
     arrived in Haiti after the kidnapping, what did they do? They 
     closed the faculty of medicine and they are now in the 
     classrooms. This is what they call peace. This is the 
     opposite of peace. Peace means investing in human beings, 
     investing in health care, respect for human rights, not 
     violations of human rights, no violations for the rights 
     of those who voted for an elected President, and this is 
     what it means. . . . How can you imagine that you come to 
     me, you want to be in peace, and you close my university 
     and you send out 247 students of medicine in the country 
     where you don't have hospitals and you don't have enough 
     doctors. God, this is an occupation. When you protect 
     killers, when you protect drug dealers like Guy Philippe, 
     like Chamblain, when you protect the citizens of the 
     United States in violating the law of the United States, 
     Mr. Andy Apaid is a citizen of the United States, 
     violating the Neutral Act, the way with this act will 
     destroy our Democracy, and once we do that, then this is 
     an occupation.'' (quotation from Democracy Now!)
       Kim Ives, who is with the Haiti Support Network and is a 
     journalist with the newspaper Haiti Progres, is a member of 
     the delegation and had an opportunity to speak to President 
     Aristide in Creole during the meeting following today's press 
     conference. Ives states that Aristide's account of the events 
     of February 28-29 stand in sharp contrast to the account 
     given by Colin Powell and other U.S. officials to the 
     Washington Post on March 3. The U.S. ``Story'' was that 
     Aristide was ready to leave the country and that they simply 
     facilitated his departure at his request. Colin Powell and 
     other U.S. officials later said that Aristide's assertion 
     that he had been the victim of a U.S. coup were ``absurd'' 
     and ``not true.''
       Ives stated, ``The Washington Post and other U.S. media 
     coverage gives the impression that the sequence of events 
     leading to Aristide's departure at 6 a.m. on February 29 
     began around 4 or 5 a.m. when Aristide allegedly called U.S. 
     officials and asked for their assistance in leaving the 
     country. President Aristide told me that in fact `armed 
     Americans and diplomats' came to his residence the day 
     before--that is, on the evening of February 28. Aristide 
     reported that U.S. officials told the 19 security guards that 
     have functioned as a presidential security detail that they 
     should abandon their posts. These 19 security guards were on 
     assignment from the Steele Foundation and are mostly former 
     members of the U.S. Special Forces. They were told by U.S. 
     officials that they `wouldn't be protected, the gig was up.' 
     President Aristide asserts that these Steele Foundation 
     security guards basically obeyed the orders from their former 
     employers (the Pentagon). They were flown by helicopter on 
     Saturday night away from the presidential palace, leaving 
     Aristide with no armed protection.''
       A recent Miami Herald article on the subject reported that 
     another 25 reinforcement security guards from the Steele 
     Foundation, who were supposed to arrive Saturday, February 
     28, received a call Friday night telling them that the U.S. 
     would block their deployment.
       Mr. Ives also stated that ``President Aristide was told by 
     U.S. Ambassador James Foley that the U.S. officials and 
     armed forces would take him to a press conference with the 
     international and Haitian press, where President Aristide 
     could make his case. President Aristide agreed to go on 
     the condition that he could speak to the media, and also 
     that his home would be protected from any attack or 
     looting. The fact is, the press conference never took 
     place and his home was looted almost immediately after he 
     left.

[[Page H907]]

       ``President Aristide was instead driven to a plane. Upon 
     arriving at approximately 5 a.m. on February 29, he found his 
     19 security guards already there. They were all flown--
     including the one-year-old child of one of the guards--to the 
     Central African Republic. After spending 20 hours on a plane 
     flying to a destination unknown to them, the security guards 
     were then flown back to the United States. The trip prevented 
     them from revealing the details of the coup until after 
     Aristide was out of Haiti and in the Central African 
     Republic.
       ``In the course of the discussions with President Aristide, 
     it became clear that the timing of the coup coincided with 
     several international developments that could have shifted 
     the relationship of forces in the Haitian government's favor. 
     While the U.S. government escalated pressure on Aristide to 
     resign in that last week, the government of South Africa had 
     sent a planeload of weapons that was set to arrive on Sunday, 
     February 29. Venezuela was in discussions about sending 
     troops to support Aristide. There was also gathering 
     international support and solidarity for the maintenance of 
     constitutional democracy in Haiti. African American leaders 
     were receiving increasing media attention as they denounced 
     the efforts towards a coup. Two prominent U.S. delegations, 
     one led by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and 
     another led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 
     were set to arrive within days. We can see that there were 
     various converging influences of aid about to come. This 
     accounts in large part for the timing of the coup, it 
     explains why the U.S. had to rush in and remove Aristide,'' 
     concluded Ives.
       Johnnie Stevens of the International Action Center stated, 
     ``Today, as a consequence of strong international pressure, 
     the people of Haiti and the rest of the world have had a 
     chance to hear President Aristide refute the lies and 
     slanders of the U.S. government and its henchmen from the 
     former Haitian military who are behind the coup. We believe 
     that the U.S. has tried to muzzle or silence President 
     Aristide, not simply to stop one man from speaking out. The 
     goal is to discourage the people of Haiti from continuing the 
     growing struggle demanding President Aristide's return. It is 
     really an effort to muzzle, silence and pacify the people in 
     order to impose U.S. regime change.''
       Stevens continued, ``The people of Haiti have been a source 
     of inspiration for two centuries. Their struggle for freedom, 
     independence and sovereignty is part and parcel of the 
     struggle of oppressed people everywhere. We must continue to 
     do everything in our power to stand up against the racist 
     designs of the Bush administration.''
       In his interview with Democracy Now! President Aristide was 
     asked if he planned to return to Haiti. His response: ``If I 
     can go (to Haiti) today, I would go today. If it's tomorrow, 
     tomorrow. Whenever time comes, I will say yes, because my 
     people, they elected me.''

                          ____________________