Sold-Out Brooklyn College Rally Slams U.S. Role in Aristide's Ouster

[Robbien]

An overflow crowd of over 2,000 people packed the Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College on the evening of Wednesday, April 7 to hear a broad range of speakers accuse and condemn the Bush administration for undermining and eventually kidnapping Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004.

The event, entitled "The Truth Behind the Haiti Coup," highlighted the work done by the Haiti Commission of Inquiry, which presented the results of its findings from delegations sent during March to the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic. The independent Commission, a project jointly initiated by the International Action Center (IAC) and the Haiti Support Network (HSN), is investigating the origins, methods and actors of the coup.

Speakers at the rally included Congressional representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Major Owens (D-NY), actor Ossie Davis, former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and Haitian political leader Ben Dupuy. WBAI Radio's Don Rojas and Amy Goodman also spoke.

"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls investigations into the latest Haitian coup, even that called for by CARICOM, a waste of time," said Dupuy, the secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN), at the event. "This shows how much they fear the truth getting out. To add insult to injury, the U.S. is promoting diversionary investigations into Aristide's alleged drug trafficking, human rights abuses and corruption. Meanwhile, to carry out their coup, Washington is collaborating with death-squad leaders and soldiers universally recognized as corrupt drug-dealing human rights abusers. Even U.S. government officials from former President Clinton to Powell have called them criminals and thugs." The PPN offered critical support to Aristide's Lavalas Family party in recent months and continues to lead resistance to the coup.

http://www.iacenter.org/haiti_0404rept.htm

[TankLV]

1. Powell calls investigations to the US coup to overthrow a legally elected

leader of a soverign country "a waste of time", but he has time to initiate and conduct an ivestigation into their trumped-up charges against Aristide at the same time?

Do they even listen to what they are saying anymore - have they ever?

[Chovexani]

2. That's my school!

I wanted to go but couldn't get tickets. :(

BC is great, apparently back in the 50s it was called the Little Red Schoolhouse. :evilgrin: