We gave Aristide a face-saving (literally) way out - "Sign here, please, watch your head getting on board, have a pleasant flight, bear in mind that the closest emergency exit may be behind you" - a free plane ride to a luxury resort in South Africa the Central African Republic (telephone not included), and this is how he thanks us?
AN attorney for exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has asked the US to investigate high-ranking US government officials involved in what Aristide claims was a kidnapping and coup d'etat to remove him from office.Um, okay, Mr. President. We'll fire up the VC-32 and drop you off at the steps of the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince. How's that sound? We apologize for any misunderstanding.
Ira Kurzban, who was for years the US legal representative for the ousted president's government, said Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and Luis Moreno, the deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy, were behind Aristide's February 29 removal and forced him and his wife into exile in the Central African Republic. "Because they were kidnapped, by officials of the United States Government, a claim has been filed," Kurzban said at a news conference in Miami's Little Haiti.
. . .
In his letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Kurzban asked that the Justice Department launch a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the departure of Aristide - who insists he's still Haiti's president - and his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, who is a US citizen. They fled the country aboard a US chartered plane.
Kurzban said US laws were violated, including those banning kidnapping, the imprisoning of internationally protected persons and committing such acts against a person on board an aircraft registered in the US or owned by an American.
He said Aristide's removal from office was also a violation of an international treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons. Kurzban said his call for an investigation was the first step toward bringing the case before an international court.
The Over/Under on his life expectancy if we did that: two minutes, six seconds. Take the Under.
Posted by Chris at March 9, 2004 09:25 PM