US Marines dispute Bay View’s account of Haiti Flag Day protest

[seemslikeadream]

Despite the slaughter of thousands of democracy-loving Haitians since the Feb. 29 coup d’état, 30,000-50,000 marched for freedom on Haiti’s Flag Day May 18. And they kept marching, even into a hail of police gunfire that felled several – their courage equal to that of their ancestors who defeated Napolean’s best troops. The Haitians of that day are described by a French officer, Capt. Jean-Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse: “But what men these Blacks are! How they fight and how they die! One has to make war against them to know their reckless courage in braving danger when they can no longer have recourse to strategem. I have seen a solid column, torn by grape-shot from four pieces of cannon, advance without making a retrograde step. The more they fell, the greater seemed to be the courage of the rest. They advanced singing … a song of brave men.”
Photo: Haiti Information Project © 2004


On Thursday and again on Saturday, the Bay View received email messages from U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Lapan, spokesman for the Multinational Interim Force in Haiti, wanting to “correct the record regarding MIF forces and U.S. Marines.” Lapan is disputing our coverage of the May 18 protest by 30,000 to 50,000 Haitians, headlined “At least 9 demonstrators killed during huge march on Haiti’s Flag Day,” in last week’s Bay View. This response to Lapan by journalist and documentary filmmaker Kevin Pina, an eyewitness, is followed by Lapan’s first message, then by responses from Pierre Labossiere and Wanda Sabir and finally by Lapan’s second message.

by Kevin Pina


Despite the slaughter of thousands of democracy-loving Haitians since the Feb. 29 coup d’état, 30,000-50,000 marched for freedom on Haiti’s Flag Day May 18. And they kept marching, even into a hail of police gunfire that felled several – their courage equal to that of their ancestors who defeated Napolean’s best troops. The Haitians of that day are described by a French officer, Capt. Jean-Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse: “But what men these Blacks are! How they fight and how they die! One has to make war against them to know their reckless courage in braving danger when they can no longer have recourse to strategem. I have seen a solid column, torn by grape-shot from four pieces of cannon, advance without making a retrograde step. The more they fell, the greater seemed to be the courage of the rest. They advanced singing … a song of brave men.”
Photo: Haiti Information Project © 2004
I was an eyewitness to events of May 18 and wish to publicly respond to a letter written to the SF Bay View by Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, USMC, director, Public Affairs Office of the Combined Joint Task Force, Haiti. His letter was a response to an account of events on May 18 written by attorney Marguerite Laurent and published in the Bay View May 19.

While it is true I did not see the Marines fire into crowds, it is also true they were not required to do so, as they left that dirty work to the SWAT team of PNH or Police Nationale de Haiti (which Lapan should know is the correct acronym, by the way, not HNP). The role of the Marines was to enter the heart of the neighborhood of Bel Air with an extraordinary show of numbers and firepower in a clear effort to intimidate the community.

more
http://www.sfbayview.com/052604/marinesdispute052604.shtml

[seemslikeadream]

1. Haiti and the insanity of ‘official’ denial

by Anthony Fenton

..............

On Flashpoints Radio (broadcast weekdays at 5 p.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM, www.flashpoints.net), responsible journalist Kevin Pina recounted his eyewitness experience of the demonstrations, explaining how he was threatened with arrest by a U.S. Marine - despite showing his credentials - and was subsequently shot at by the new Haitian Special Forces as he denounced the Marines for promoting the violence. Prior to this, one demonstrator standing near him was slain as a result of the Haitian police firing upon demonstrators. Anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000 people demonstrated at various times and places throughout the day.

That this many people were courageous enough to demonstrate - after two and a half months of severe repression that has seen thousands killed, beaten or disappeared - is telling, and might serve to inspire the "progressives" who have mostly suffered from a strange and silent paralysis toward Haiti in terms of movement building. The main thing that these demonstrations do is put the lie to all of those who claim that Haiti is "on the right track" or "moving forward" or that the "interim" government is "doing a good job" with the full support of the U.S. and its vassal states.

Speaking of vassal states, the consensus in Canada is that "people were unanimously calling for Aristide’s departure" (see the recent goings on in the Foreign Affairs Committee, http://www.parl.gc.ca). Where, in the United States, there is existing political opposition to the role of the government in manufacturing the “Haitian crisis” (however marginal this is), no such opposition can be said to exist in Canada. Across the board of governmental and non-governmental agencies, a firm position of official denial has set in. This owes largely to the seamless transition the Canadian government has made since the installation of Paul Martin as prime minister to a climate of militarism, jingoism, fear-mongering, empty rhetoric and an ever more obedient media machine.

Paul Martin and his fellow Liberal coup-backers seized the Haiti opportunity to show their imperial masters that they could be relied upon to mercilessly help carry out a systematic program of destabilization. Canada also showed that it can help navigate the waters of a post-coup environment, as the government lies over and over until the lie becomes the truth. Haiti is just a warm up, as Canada is frantically beefing up its armed forces ($8 billion spent since December 2003) in order to get up to speed with the United States and to face the greatest threat of the 21st century, which, according to Martin, "is centred on terror cells"(speech at Gagetown, NB, April 14, 2004).

At this point, the layperson who happens to read page 35 of the corporate media daily that prints Haiti’s latest news is in no position to be moved to support the call for Aristide’s return. The impact of the corporate media’s own official denial deepens the pervasiveness of the more general denial, as it dovetails with that of the government and NGOs. The burden of responsibility therefore lies on the alternative media and the activists who support or rely on it, to respond to the appeal for solidarity with the Haitian masses.

more
http://www.sfbayview.com/052604/officialdenial052604.shtml

[bemildred]

2. Better prohibit all those cell phone cameras in Haiti too. nt