US flags charges against exiled Aristide

From Michael Keaney, the A List.

US flags charges against exiled Aristide
By Henry Hamman in Miami
Financial Times: April 7 2004

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, suggested this week that the US
might bring corruption charges against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the ousted
Haitian president - a sign of an intensifying effort to prevent Mr Aristide
from attempting to regain power in Haiti.

"There are inquiries being made by our judicial authorities in the US to see
if there is any evidence of wrongdoing on his part," Mr Powell told
reporters while visiting Port-au-Prince this week.

Administration officials believe Mr Aristide is likely to be indicted, most
likely on corruption charges but possibly also on human rights and narcotics
trafficking.
Ira Kurzban, Mr Aristide's Miami-based lawyer, said he believed US officials
were already considering indicting Mr Aristide with help from a "continuing
disinformation campaign" by US intelligence agencies. "It shows how worried
they are about having a democracy in Haiti," he said.

A spokesman for the US Justice department declined to comment on a case
against Mr Aristide, and a Drug Enforcement Agency official in Miami also
refused to confirm or deny an Aristide investigation. Otto Reich, the White
House envoy for western hemisphere initiatives, called the allegation of a
disinformation campaign "nonsense".

The DEA official pointed to an arrest warrant issued in March for Oriel
Jean, described as the chief of Mr Aristide's presidential palace security
unit. The warrant, citing confidential sources, charges that Mr Jean took
pay-offs to allow Haiti to be used as a transit point for Latin American
cocaine.

Mr Jean is in Canada, where he had faced extradition even before the arrest
warrant was served.

Earlier, unnamed sources in Haiti had drawn attention to allegations by
Beaudoin "Jacques" Kétant made in February in a Miami federal court before
he was sentenced to 27 years in prison and a $30m (?25m, £16m) fine for drug
trafficking. Mr Kétant, according to reports, called Mr Aristide "a drug
lord" and said he "controlled the drug trade in Haiti".

Mr Kétant's outburst at first drew little attention, but news stories from
Port-au-Prince citing his allegations appeared two days after Mr Aristide
arrived last month in Jamaica, a visit strongly opposed by the Bush
administration.

The affidavit supporting Mr Jean's arrest cites as one of four confidential
sources "a former Haitian drug trafficker who has [pleaded] guilty and has
already been sentenced for drug trafficking and money laundering charges".

The warrant acknowledges that the source is "co-operating with the United
States in the hope that his sentence will be reduced". A spokesman for the
US attorney in Miami - a likely venue for any prosecution of Mr Aristide -
refused to comment.

Jocelerme Privert, Mr Aristide's interior minister, turned himself in to
police on Tuesday, facing charges of helping to co-ordinate a massacre
during the civil disturbances before Mr Aristide was overthrown, Reuters
reports from Port-au-Prince. He is the first Aristide minister to be
detained.

--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
                --Brecht.



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