USA consollidates hold on Haiti with 12,000 troop invasion

[Peter Lemkin]

By tomorrow there will be 12,000 active troops in Haiti, ostensibly to provide aid after the earthquake, but the USA is now controlling the airport, who and what aid flights and groups enter and even turned away aid flights to allow Clinton and her entourage to make their 'show'. I don't think we'll ever leave - just set up another permanent base and continue our covert occupation in an overt way. Little aid piled up at the airport is getting to anyone anywhere in Haiti. I'd call it an invasion, not a relief aid mission......stay tuned.

[Magda Hassan]

I heard that a Medcin Sans Frontiers plane with a fully equipped hospital was not permitted to land at Haiti airport and had to divert to Dominican Republic. They had to then travel by road which has added at least an extra 24 hour on to getting the hospital operational. How many people will die in that time from lack of access to medical aid? The Cuban doctors were first on the scene and the Venezuelans have also sent aid and naval ships.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti: Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

By Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, January 15, 2010


Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti's national economy and the impoverishment of its population.

The devastating earthquake is presented to World public opinion as the sole cause of the country's predicament.

A country has been destroyed, its infrastructure demolished. Its people precipitated into abysmal poverty and despair.

Haiti's history, its colonial past have been erased.

The US military has come to the rescue of an impoverished Nation. What is its Mandate?

Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

The main actors in America's "humanitarian operation" are the Department of Defense, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (See USAID Speeches: On-The-Record Briefing on the Situation in Haiti, 01/13/10). USAID has also been entrusted in channelling food aid to Haiti, which is distributed by the World Food Program. (See USAID Press Release: USAID to Provide Emergency Food Aid for Haiti Earthquake Victims, January 13, 2010)

The military component of the US mission, however, tends to overshadow the civilian functions of rescuing a desperate and impoverished population. The overall humanitarian operation is not being led by civilian governmental agencies such as FEMA or USAID, but by the Pentagon.

The dominant decision making role has been entrusted to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

A massive deployment of military hardware and personnel is contemplated. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has confirmed that the US will be sending nine to ten thousand troops to Haiti, including 2000 marines. (American Forces Press Service, January 14, 2010)

Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships has already arrived in Port au Prince. (January 15, 2010). The 2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit as well as and soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division "are trained in a wide variety of missions including security and riot-control in addition to humanitarian tasks."

In contrast to rescue and relief teams dispatched by various civilian teams and organizations, the humanitarian mandate of the US military is not clearly defined:

“Marines are definitely warriors first, and that is what the world knows the Marines for,... [but] we’re equally as compassionate when we need to be, and this is a role that we’d like to show -- that compassionate warrior, reaching out with a helping hand for those who need it. We are very excited about this.” (Marines' Spokesman, Marines Embark on Haiti Response Mission, Army Forces Press Services, January 14, 2010)

While presidents Obama and Préval spoke on the phone, there were no reports of negotiations between the two governments regarding the entry and deployment of US troops on Haitian soil. The decision was taken and imposed unilaterally by Washington. The total lack of a functioning government in Haiti was used to legitimize, on humanitarian grounds, the sending in of a powerful military force, which has de facto taken over several governmental functions.

TABLE 1

US Military Assets to be Sent to Haiti. (according to official announcements)

The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) and amphibious dock landing ships USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) and USS Carter Hall (LSD 50).

A 2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division. 900 soldiers are slated to arrive in Haiti by January 15th.

Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships. (arrived in Port au Prince on January 15, 2010): USS Carl Vinson CVN 70

The hospital ship USNS Comfort

Several U.S. Coast Guard vessels and helicopters




USS Carl Vinson

The three amphibious ships will join aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy and guided-missile frigate USS Underwood.



USS Normandy

Leading Role of US Southern Command

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami is the "lead agency" in Haiti. Its mandate as a regional military command is to carry out modern warfare. Its stated mission in Latin America and the Caribbean is "to conduct military operations and promote security cooperation to achieve U.S. strategic objectives." (Our Mission - U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) The commanding officers are trained to oversee theater operations, military policing as well "counterinsurgency" in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the recent establishment of new US military bases in Colombia, within proximity of the Venezuelan border.

General Douglas Fraser, commander of U.S. Southern Command has defined the Haiti emergency operation as a Command, Control, Communications operation (C3). US Southern Command is to oversee a massive deployment of military hardware, including several warships, an aircraft carrier, airborne combat divisions, etc:

"So we're focused on getting command and control and communications there so that we can really get a better understanding of what's going on. MINUSTAH [United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti], as their headquarters partially collapsed, lost a lot of their communication, and so we're looking to robust that communication, also.

We're also sending in assessment teams in conjunction with USAID, supporting their efforts, as well as putting in some of our own to support their efforts.

We're moving various ships that we had in the region -- they're small ships, Coast Guard cutters, destroyers -- in that direction, to provide whatever immediate assistance that we can on the ground.

We also have a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, moving in that direction. It was at sea off of Norfolk, and so it's going to take a couple of days for it to get there. We need to also just resupply it and give it the provisions it needs to support the effort as we look at Haiti. And then we're looking across the international agencies to figure out how we support their efforts as well as our efforts.

We also are looking at a large-deck amphibious ship with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit on it that will be a couple of days behind the USS Vinson.

And that gives us a broader range of capability to move supplies around, to have lift capability to help support the effort there also.

So bottom line to it is, we don't have a clear assessment right now of what the situation on the ground is, what the needs within Port-au-Prince are, how extensive the situation is.

We also, finally, have a team that's headed in to the airport. From my understanding -- because my deputy commander just happened to be in Haiti when this situation happened, on a previously scheduled visit. He has been to the airport. He says the runway is functional but the tower doesn't have communications capability. The passenger terminal -- has structural damage to it, so we don't know what the status of it is.

So we have a group going in to make sure we can gain and secure the airfield and operate from it, because that's one of those locations we think we're going to have a lot of the immediate effort from an international basis going into.

And then we're out conducting all the other assessments that you would consider appropriate as we go in and work this effort.

We're also coordinating on the ground with MINUSTAH, with the folks who are there. The commander for MINUSTAH happened to be in Miami when this situation happened, so he's right now traveling back through and should be arriving in Port-au-Prince any time now. So that will help us coordinate our efforts there also, because again, obviously the United Nations suffered a significant loss there with the collapse -- at least partial collapse of their headquarters.

So that's -- those are the initial efforts that we have ongoing And as we get the assessments of what's coming next, then we'll adjust as required.

The secretary of Defense, the president, have all stipulated that this is a significant effort, and we're corralling all the resources within the Department of Defense to support this effort." (Defense.gov News Transcript: DOD News Briefing with Gen. Fraser from the Pentagon, January 13, 2010)

A Heritage Foundation report summarizes the substance of America's mission in Haiti: "The earthquake has both humanitarian and U.S. national security implications [requiring] a rapid response that is not only bold but decisive, mobilizing U.S. military, governmental, and civilian capabilities for both a short-term rescue and relief effort and a longer-term recovery and reform program in Haiti." (James M. Roberts and Ray Walser, American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake, Heritage Foundation, January 14, 2010).

At the outset, the military mission will be involved in first aid and emergency as well as public security and police activities.

US Air Force Controls the Airport

The US Air Force has taken over air traffic control functions as well as the management of Port au Prince airport. In other words, the US military regulates the flow of emergency aid and relief supplies which are being brought into the country in civilian planes. The US Air Force is not working under the instructions of Haitian Airport officials. These officials have been displaced. The airport is run by the US Military (Interview with Haitian Ambassador to the US R. Joseph, PBS News, January 15, 2010)

"The FAA's team is working with DOD combat controllers to improve the flow of air traffic moving in and out of the airport. The US Air Force reopened the airport on 14 January, and on 15 January its contingency response group was granted senior airfield authority ... Senior airfield authority enables the Air Force to prioritise, schedule and control the airspace at the airport, ..." (flightglobal.com, January 16, 2010, emphasis added)

The 1,000-bed U.S. Navy hospital ship, USNS Comfort, which includes more than 1,000 medical and support personnel has been sent to Haiti under the jurisdiction of Southern Command. (See Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds readies for Haiti quake relief, Digital Journal, January 14, 2010). There were, at the time of the Earthquake, some 7100 military personnel and over 2000 police, namely a foreign force of over 9000. In contrast, the international civilian personnel of MINUSTAH is less than 500. MINUSTAH Facts and Figures - United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti


TABLE 2

United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)

Current strength (30 November 2009)

9,065 total uniformed personnel

7,031 troops
2,034 police 488 international civilian personnel
1,212 local civilian staff
214 United Nations Volunteers

MINUSTAH Facts and Figures - United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti

Estimated combined SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH forces; 19,095*

*Excluding commitments by France (unconfirmed) and Canada (confirmed 800 troops). The US, France and Canada were "partners" in the February 29, 2004 Coup d'État.
Haiti has been under foreign military occupation since the US instigated February 2004 Coup d'Etat. The contingent of US forces under SOUTHCOM combined with those of MINUSTAH brings foreign military presence in Haiti to close to 20,000 in a country of 9 million people. In comparison in Afghanistan, prior to Obama's military surge, combined US and NATO forces were of the order of 70,000 for a population of 28 million. In other words, on a per capita basis there will be more troops in Haiti than in Afghanistan.

Recent US Military Interventions in Haiti

There have been several US sponsored military interventions in recent history. In 1994, following three years of military rule, a force of 20,000 occupation troops and "peace-keepers" was sent to Haiti. The 1994 US military intervention "was not intended to restore democracy. Quite the contrary: it was carried out to prevent a popular insurrection against the military Junta and its neoliberal cohorts." (Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 28, 2004)

US and allied troops remained in the country until 1999. The Haitian armed forces were disbanded and the US State Department hired a mercenary company DynCorp to provide "technical advice" in restructuring the Haitian National Police (HNP). (Ibid).

The February 2004 Coup d'État

In the months leading up to the 2004 Coup d'Etat, US special forces and the CIA were training death squadrons composed of the former tonton macoute of the Duvalier era. The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in early February 2004. "It was a well armed, trained and equipped paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l'avancement et le progrès d'Haiti (FRAPH), the "plain clothes" death squadrons, involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide." (see Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti: Global Research. February 28, 2004)

Foreign troops were sent into Haiti. MINUSTAH was set up in the wake of the US sponsored coup d'Etat in February 2004 and the kidnapping and deportation of the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. The coup was instigated by the US with the support of France and Canada.

The FRAPH units subsequently integrated the country's police force, which was under the supervision of MINUSTAH. In the political and social disarray triggered by the earthquake, the former armed militia and Ton Ton macoute will be playing a new role.

Hidden Agenda

The unspoken mission of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with headquarters in Miami and US military installations throughout Latin America is to ensure the maintenance of subservient national regimes, namely US proxy governments, committed to the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal policy agenda. While US military personnel will at the outset be actively involved in emergency and disaster relief, this renewed US military presence in Haiti will be used to establish a foothold in the country as well pursue America's strategic and geopolitical objectives in the Caribbean basin, which are largely directed against Cuba and Venezuela.

The objective is not to work towards the rehabilitation of the national government, the presidency, the parliament, all of which has been decimated by the earthquake. Since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, America's design has been to gradually dismantle the Haitian State, restore colonial patterns and obstruct the functioning of a democratic government. In the present context, the objective is not only to do away with the government but also to revamp the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), of which the headquarters have been destroyed.

"The role of heading the relief effort and managing the crisis quickly fell to the United States, for lack -- in the short term, at least -- of any other capable entity." ( US Takes Charge in Haiti _ With Troops, Rescue Aid - NYTimes.com, January 14, 2009)

Prior to the earthquake, there were, according to US military sources, some 60 US military personnel in Haiti. From one day to the next, an outright military surge has occurred: 10,000 troops, marines, special forces, intelligence operatives, etc., not to mention private mercenary forces on contract to the Pentagon.

In all likelihood the humanitarian operation will be used as a pretext and justification to establish a more permanent US military presence in Haiti.

We are dealing with a massive deployment, a "surge" of military personnel assigned to emergency relief.

The first mission of SOUTHCOM will be to take control of what remains of the country's communications, transport and energy infrastructure. Already, the airport is under de facto US control. In all likelihood, the activities of MINUSTAH which from the outset in 2004 have served US foreign policy interests, will be coordinated with those of SOUTHCOM, namely the UN mission will be put under de facto control of the US military.

The Militarization of Civil Society Relief Organizations

The US military in Haiti seeks to oversee the activities of approved humanitarian organizations. It also purports to encroach upon the humanitarian activities of Venezuela and Cuba:

"The government under President René Préval is weak and literally now in shambles. Cuba and Venezuela, already intent on minimizing U.S. influence in the region, are likely to seize this opportunity to raise their profile and influence..." (James M. Roberts and Ray Walser, American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake, Heritage Foundation, January 14, 2010).

In the US, the militarization of emergency relief operations was instigated during the Katrina crisis, when the US military was called in to play a lead role.

The model of emergency intervention for SOUTHCOM is patterned on the role of NORTHCOM, which was granted a mandate as "the lead agency" in US domestic emergency procedures.

During Hurricane Rita in 2005, the detailed groundwork for the "militarization of emergency relief" involving a leading role for NORTHCOM was established. In this regard, Bush had hinted to the central role of the military in emergency relief: "Is there a natural disaster--of a certain size--that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about." (Statement of President Bush at a press conference, Bush Urges Shift in Relief Responsibilities - washingtonpost.com, September 26, 2005).

"The response to the national disaster is not being coordinated by the civilian government out of Texas, but from a remote location and in accordance with military criteria. US Northern Command Headquarters will directly control the movement of military personnel and hardware in the Gulf of Mexico. As in the case of Katrina, it will override the actions of civilian bodies. Yet in this case, the entire operation is under the jurisdiction of the military rather than under that of FEMA." (Michel Chossudovsky, US Northern Command and Hurricane Rita, Global Research, September 24, 2005)

Concluding Remarks

Haiti is a country under military occupation since the US instigated Coup d'Etat of February 2004.

The entry of ten thousand heavily armed US troops, coupled with the activities of local militia could potentially precipitate the country into social chaos.

These foreign forces have entered the country to reinforce MINUSTAH "peacekeepers" and Haitian police forces (integrated by former Tonton Macoute), which since 2004, have been responsible for war crimes directed against the Haitian people, including the indiscriminate killing of civilians.

These troups reinforce the existing occupation forces under UN mandate.

Twenty thousand foreign troops under SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH commands will be present in the country. In all likelihood, there will be an integration or coordination of the command structures of SOUTHCOM and MINUSTAH.

The Haitian people have exhibited a high degree of solidarity, courage and social commitment.

Helping one another and acting with consciousness: under very difficult conditions, in the immediate wake of the disaster, citizens rescue teams were set up spontaneously.

The militarization of relief operations will weaken the organizational capabilities of Haitians to rebuild and reinstate the institutions of civilian government which have been destroyed. It will also encroach upon the efforts of the international medical teams and civilian relief organisations.

It is absolutely essential that the Haitian people continue to forcefully oppose the presence of foreign troops in their country, particularly in public security operations.

It is essential that Americans across the land forcefully oppose the decision of the Obama adminstration to send US combat troops to Haiti.

There can be no real reconstruction or development under foreign military occupation.

[Ed Jewett]

NEWS FROM CLG's BREAKING NEWS and COMMENTARY
Last updated: 01/18/2010 04:27:58

Muisic videos from Google, YouTube and elsewhere

More HAARP: Argentina hit by 6.3 magnitude earthquake after Haiti and Venezuela
17 Jan 2010

The latest news is a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Argentina after the 7.0 Haiti Earthquake and the 5.6 Venezuela Earthquake, and all less than a week apart. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake was centered 354 km southeast of Ushuaia, Argentina, the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, at a depth of 21 km, or about 10.5 miles down. The earthquake hit at 8am local time (1200 GMT, 8pm Singapore time).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraha...;entry_id=55432



Report: Blackwater 'protecting news outlet' in Haiti
16 Jan 2010
Report via Twitter by Jeremy Scahill: 'Getting reports from #Haiti that #Blackwater is "protecting" at least one major US media outlet's people.'

http://www.legitgov.org/#blackwater_in_haiti



Ortega warns of US deployment in Haiti
17 Jan 2010

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country. "What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as US troops have already taken control of the airport," Ortega said on Saturday. The Pentagon says it has deployed more than 10,000 soldiers in Haiti to help victims of Tuesday's earthquake. This is while US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division took control of the main airport in the capital Port-au-Prince on Friday three days after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake brought death and misery to the impoverished nation. "There is no logic that US troops landed in Haiti. Haiti seeks humanitarian aid, not troops. It would be madness [if] we all began to send troops to Haiti," said Ortega. "I hope they will withdraw troops occupying Haiti," he added. Earlier on Thursday, Nicaragua sent 31 military doctors of the Humanitarian Rescue Unit (URH) and humanitarian aid for the victims of the calamity.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=11634...ionid=351020706


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoQ-jGVHVqU (music video)

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Chavez says U.S. occupying Haiti in name of aid --Chavez promised to send as much gasoline as Haiti needs for electricity generation and transport.
17 Jan 2010

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his OPEC nation. "I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United States should send," Chavez said on his weekly television show. "They are occupying Haiti undercover. "

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60G2DW20100117


“It is amazing that no one says a word on the fact that Haiti was the first country where 400 thousand Africans, enslaved and brought to this land by Europeans, rebelled against 30 thousand white owners of sugarcane and coffee plantations and succeeded in making the first great social revolution in our hemisphere. Pages of insurmountable glory were then written there where Napoleon’s most outstanding general tasted defeat. Haiti is a complete product of colonialism and imperialism, of more than a century of using its human resources in the hardest labors, of military interventions and the extraction of its wealth. Such a historic oblivion would not be so grave if it were not because Haiti is an embarrassment in our times, in a world where the exploitation and plundering of the overwhelming majority of people on the planet prevail. Billions of people in Latin America, Africa and Asia endure similar privation although probably not all of them in such high proportion as Haiti. No place on earth should be affected by such situations, even though there are tens of thousands of towns and villages in similar and sometimes worse conditions resulting from an unfair economic and political international order imposed worldwide.”

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/20...g/f140110i.html

Cuba helping in Haiti --Between 600 and 700 patients treated daily
17 Jan 2010

Steve Kastenbaum gave a laudatory report on CNN about the La Paz hospital where the Cubans are operating in Haiti, with help of Spanish and Latin American surgeons. Kastenbaum reports that La Paz Hospital, established by the Cubans, is one of the only places in Port au Prince currently where ordinary Haitians can be treated. Several dozen surgeries are taking place daily, with few supplies and facilities; the hospital is operating 24 hours a day.

http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?opt...ans-can-turn-to

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http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...videoid=8649608 music video

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Haiti buries 70,000 in mass graves
18 Jan 2010

Haiti has announced that it has buried 70,000 bodies in mass graves as search and rescue personnel are continuing their efforts to find more survivors or dead trapped under the debris caused by last Tuesday's massive earthquake. The country has declared a state of emergency until the end of January and a month-long period of national mourning, Haitian government minister Carol Joseph said on Sunday.

Tens of thousands neglected at quake epicentre
17 Jan 2010

The immense scale of the earthquake devastation outside Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, is becoming clearer. People in Leogane, at the quake's epicentre, have so far been left to fend for themselves in ad hoc squatter camps. "It's the very epicentre of the earthquake, and many, many thousands are dead," said World Food Program (WFP) spokesman David Orr.

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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x85hb2_...mvle_music music video

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Doctors Without Borders Cargo Plane With Full Hospital and Staff Blocked From Landing in Port-au-Prince
--Demands Deployment of Lifesaving Medical Equipment Given Priority Port-au-Prince

17 Jan 2010

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urges that its cargo planes carrying essential medical and surgical material be allowed to land in Port-au-Prince in order to treat thousands of wounded waiting for vital surgical operations. Priority must be given immediately to planes carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel. Despite guarantees, given by the United Nations and the US Defense Department, an MSF cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, and was re-routed to Samana, in Dominican Republic. All material from the cargo is now being sent by truck from Samana, but this has added a 24-hour delay for the arrival of the hospital.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press...ase.cfm?id=4165



Caricom blocked... as US takes control of airport
17 Jan 2010

The Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising Heads of Government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devastated country's airport, now under the control of the United States. Consequently, the Caricom 'assessment mission', that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the earthquake disaster of Haiti last Tuesday, had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective home destinations. On Friday afternoon the US State Department confirmed signing two 'Memoranda of Understanding' with the Government of Haiti that made official that the United States is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid off-loading...' Prior to the US taking control of Haiti's airport, a batch of some 30 Cuban doctors had left Havana, following Wednesday's earthquake, to join more than 300 of their colleagues who have been working there for more than a year.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/ar...ws?id=161583443



Elderly and abandoned, 84 Haitians await death
17 Jan 2010

There is no food, water or medicine for the 84 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, barely a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape. "Help us, help us," 69-year-old Mari-Ange Levee begged Sunday, lying on the ground with a broken leg and ribs. A cluster of flies swarmed the open fracture in her skull. One man had already died, and administrator Jean Emmanuel said more would follow soon unless water and food arrive immediately. [MSNBC host: 'A field hospital (from Doctors Without Borders) was actually denied permission to land... Why is that?' Miami Herald correspondent: 'That's been happening from the get-go.' The feed was then lost. --MSNBC live, 13:05 ET 17 Jan 2010.]


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqh4VId9kTI music video

[Ed Jewett]

Cryptome has photos. http://cryptome.org/info/haiti-quake/haiti-quake-01.htm

[Jan Klimkowski]

Absolutely sickening.

I just saw a Clinton family photo-op, with Bill handing out bottles of water from a US military plane, all staged for the MSM cameras.

Whilst a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital plane is refused permission to land by the US.

Very little food and water gets to the victims.

But riot police and marines patrol the streets.

What a complete and utter disgrace.

[Ed Jewett]

Haiti:We Would Rather Die Standing

Posted on January 18, 2010 by willyloman
This is the story of the Lavalas pro-democracy movement in Haiti from 2005. The UN Peacekeepers were sent in to prop up yet another American installed puppet regime, the hated interim government led by Prime Minister Gérard Latortue (brought back from the US) and President Boniface Alexandre . In Nov. of 2004, a University of Miami Law School study concluded the following:

“U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods, not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of the elected president. Their support for the interim government is not surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked for U.S. government projects that undermined their elected predecessors. Coupled with the U.S. government’s development assistance embargo from 2000–2004, the projects suggest a disturbing pattern.” University of Miami Study

A reported was told by the UN Peacekeeper in charge, as the reporter refused to quit filming a demonstration in which the Haitian National Police sent in SWAT Teams wearing black masks, “**** you **** you **** you. I am taking your picture and I am going to give it to the Haitian National Police and they are going to get you.”


[embedded video]

Filed under: Globalization, Haiti, Neocons = Neolibs, activism, class warfare, democracy, disaster capitalism, fake war on terror, revolution


[URL="http://en.wordpress.com/tag/revolution/"]http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/haitiwe-would-rather-die-standing/
[/URL]

[Ed Jewett]

“Democratization of Assets” in the Shadow of Disaster – Obama’s Unmistakable Globalist Message to the People of Haiti

Posted on January 17, 2010 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton
Obama's Unmistakable Globalist Message to Haiti

Since the dust has cleared a bit and the people of Haiti are beginning to recover from the initial shock of the earthquake, the globalist jackals and free-market zealots are circling the camp.
The smell of blood is in the air so the natural reaction for the Wall Street Tonton Macoutes is to leap into the fray with platitudes and platoons; to use your sympathies, your donations, and your soldiers to inflict their special brand of structured ”reforms” on a people who have been resisting them for decades.
Under the guise of bringing “relief” to the suffering people of Haiti, the globalists have mobilized their PR firms and politicians to pounce upon the chaotic mess that was once a proud nation. President Obama, in true neoliberal form, has appointed two obviously corrupt representatives with outrageous previous histories in Haiti to help the American robber baron class pave the way for a new opportunities in Haiti for the usual cast of globalist free-marketeers, the IMF and World Bank.

Jan. 2010, W. Post – Even as rescuers are digging victims out of the rubble in Haiti, policymakers in Washington and around the world are grappling with how a destitute, corrupt and now devastated country might be transformed into a self-sustaining nation.
… And those who will help oversee it are thinking hard about how to use that money and attention to change the country forever. Washington Post

Yes they Can.
The men President Obama has put in charge of our relief programs are thinking about how they can use this opportunity (and the money you donate out of the goodness of your heart) to change Haiti forever. In fact, they have been thinking about it, plotting and planning about it, and running coups and protecting murders about it, for decades now. Turns out all they needed was a natural disaster and a fake democrat with a peace prize to provide sufficient ”progressive” cover for the neoliberal Shock Therapy reforms that are bound to be already underway. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Obama’a message to the suffering people of Haiti could not be clearer and it could not be farther from the truth. We do not “stand united” behind the globalist agenda they have planned for Haiti.

A Brief History of Haiti, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush

Jan. 18 2010 WSWS – For eight years apiece, Clinton and Bush were directly and deeply involved in a series of political machinations and military interventions that have played a major role in perpetuating the poverty, backwardness and repression in Haiti that have vastly compounded by the disaster that struck that country last Tuesday. Both men have the blood of Haitian workers and peasants on their hands. Patrick Martin

President Clinton helped bring death and human suffering to the people of Haiti a decade and a half ago when for years he turned his back on a murderous dictatorial junta and then attempted to impose his globalist neoliberal IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs in 1995. Vice President Al Gore famously told the people of Haiti “no privatization… no money“.

Oct. 1995, IPS – The United States has warned Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide of the need to adopt a series of economic reforms or face an end to critical international funding.
U.S. Vice Price President Al Gore, on a brief visit to celebrate the first anniversary of the return of Haiti’s constitutional government, devoted most of a short news conference Sunday to the need for compliance with a sweeping International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank-designed Structural Adjustment Program (SAP).
At talks with Aristide ‘’we discussed the need for continuing international assistance to meet the developmental requirements of Haiti and the steps the government of Haiti and its people need to take in order to ensure the continued flow of these funds,’’ Gore said. IPS

After previously supporting the military junta, the Clinton administration was pressuring the newly returned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, to enact the highly unpopular neoliberal economic reforms right after he was returned to power by an effort led mainly by President Carter in 1994.
Aristide had been removed from power right after he won the election of 1990 with 67% of the popular vote. In February of 1991, Aristide took office. In September of that same year, a CIA backed military coup removed him from office and restored Haiti to a military dictatorship.

Oct. 1996, History Commons – Haiti agrees to implement a wide array of neoliberal reforms outlined in the IMF’s $1.2 billion Emergency Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) put together by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Organization of American States (OAS). The recovery package, to be funded and executed over a five-year period, aims to create a capital-friendly macroeconomic environment for the export-manufacturing sector. It calls for suppressing wages, reducing tariffs, and selling off state-owned enterprises (like the Central Bank of Haiti). Notably, there is little in the package for the country’s rural sector, which represents the activities of about 65 percent of the Haitian population. The small amount that does go to the countryside is designated for improving roads and irrigation systems and promoting export crops such as coffee and mangoes. The Haitian government also agrees to abolish tariffs on US imports, which results in the dumping of cheap US foodstuffs on the Haitian market undermining the country’s livestock and agricultural production. The disruption of economic life in the already depressed country further deteriorates the living conditions of the poor. History Commons

Oct. 1996, IMF – The major public enterprises and the state-owned banks will be restructured… IMF

In 2001, on the 10th anniversary of the illegal CIA backed coup that ousted Aristide, he addressed the coup as well as the crippling ”economic terrorism” inflicted by the neoliberal “reformers” in terms that were readily understandable at the time:

Oct. 2001, Haiti Progress – Referring to these events and the Sept. 30 coup, Aristide condemned terrorist acts in any form. He then said he considered the blockage of international aid to Haiti since last year, due to a contrived electoral crisis, as an act of economic terrorism. He charged the modern terrorists as being responsible for the current dilapidated state of Haiti. After his first election on Dec. 16, 1990, we worked peacefully and democratically to climb out of poverty but they organized the Sept. 30, 1991 coup d’itat, Aristide said. If we hadn’t had the Sept. 30th coup, today how many people would be better in the country? How many people would have already escaped poverty? How many people would have escaped unemployment?
How many would already be literate?… The 1991 coup was a crisis which should never happen again on Haitian soil, never, never, never again. Haiti Progress

After the September 30th 1991 coup in Haiti, an event aided by the CIA and run through a group called the Front for the Advancement of Progress of the Haitian People (FRAPH), the new military dictatorship set to work killing and kidnapping hundreds (or thousands) of political dissidents.
The FRAPH was run by two men; Emmanuel “Toto” Constant and Louis-Jodel Chamblain. Constant admitted to being employed by the CIA (a claim Amnesty International latter validated) and Chamblain had run a notorious death-squad under the reign of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s dictatorship. These are the kinds of people who ruled Haiti under the first few years of the Clinton administration while IMF and World Bank funds flowed into the nation and straight into the hands of Haiti’s corrupt elites. The State Department under Bill Clinton took an estimated 60,000 pages of documents from Haiti that related to the FRAPH regime when Aristide was about to be returned to power. They would later refuse to hand these documents over to the Aristide government when the latter wished to prosecute certain members of the military junta for crimes against humanity that occurred during their rule.

Oct. 2001, Haiti Progress – The Haitian government has also used the historical moment to renew its calls for the return of Emmanuel Toto Constant, the leader of the CIA-paid paramilitary death squad FRAPH during the coup, who now lives and works in Queens, New York with Washington’s protection. Haiti Progress

Noam Chomsky put it this way in a speech he gave in 2004;

March 2004, Democracy Now – The military junta, though it’s—that much is reported, they were leaders of the military junta, which killed maybe 4,000 or 5,000 people than death squads did, the paramilitaries. What is not mentioned is that the military junta was supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations.
… But just starting in 1990, the Haiti did have its first free election in 1990. The U.S. had a candidate, World Bank official Mark Bean who would assume obviously win. He had all the money and everything else. Nobody was paying attention to what was going on in the slums and the streets and the hills and what was going on was pretty impressive. A lot of large-scale effective organizing among some of the poorest, most miserable people in the world and grassroots movements had developed with nobody paying any attention. Which were so powerful that when it did come to an election, they swept the election. The U.S. candidate got 14% of the vote and Aristide, President Aristide won by a very large majority, which shocked everybody. The United States instantly, instantly turned to overthrowing the government.
… It later turned out that the Bush and the Clinton administrations had authorized Texaco Oil Corporation to circumvent presidential directives and supply the oil illegally to the gangsters who were torturing and terrorizing the population that has yet to be printed outside of the business press.
Finally, in 1994, Clinton decided that the population had been tortured enough and the president was permitted to return. That is described, and like I said, you don’t read the front pages, but what you do read is that this was a magnificent act of humanitarian intervention, pure altruism entering the noble phase of foreign policy as we restored the democratically elected president in 1994. Continuing with what isn’t reported, the president was indeed allowed to return, but on a condition, namely the condition that he accept the program of the defeated U.S. candidate in the 1990 election who had gotten 14% of the vote. That is a very harsh neo-liberal program, which opens Haiti up to complete takeover by foreign, meaning U.S., mainly corporations, no constraints. Democracy Now

But Bill Clinton and Papa Bush weren’t the last of American Globalist Presidents to wreak havoc on the innocent people of Haiti. George W. Bush got his licks in as well, while President Obama looks like his policies are going to fall right in line with the previous efforts.
After the election of Aristide in 2000 and Aristide’s obvious decision to end the neoliberal reforms that had been slowly sucking the life out of his people, a horrific destabilization campaign was begun under the Bush administration with the intention of turning the people of Haiti against President Aristide. In 2004, when destabilization plan failed outright, they simply removed him again the same way they had before, with another military coup.

Jan. 2010, WSWS - As for George W. Bush, his selection as co-leader of a supposed humanitarian campaign is an insult to the people of both Haiti and the United States. His appointment by Obama is in keeping with the Democratic president’s unflagging efforts since his election, the result of popular hatred of Bush and his party, to rehabilitate the Republicans.
An unapologetic war criminal who is responsible for the slaughter of a million Iraqis, Bush’s signature domestic “achievement” was the abject failure of the US government either to prevent the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in Hurricane Katrina, or to mount an effective relief and recovery effort afterwards. Patrick Martin

In 2005, Naomi Klein sat down and interviewed President Aristide. They discussed the conditions the Clinton administration attempted to force on him in return for allowing him to return to power in his own nation.

July 2005, Now News – But Washington’s negotiators made one demand that Aristide could not accept (Clinton administration in 1994): the immediate selloff of Haiti’s state-owned enterprises, including phones and electricity. Aristide argued that unregulated privatization would transform state monopolies into private oligarchies, increasing the riches of Haiti’s elite and stripping the poor of their national wealth. He says the proposal simply didn’t add up. “Being honest means saying 2 plus 2 equals 4. They wanted us to sing 2 plus 2 equals 5.”
Aristide proposed a compromise: rather than sell off the firms outright, he would “democratize” them. He defined this as writing antitrust legislation, insuring that proceeds from the sales were redistributed to the poor and allowing workers to become shareholders. Washington backed down, and the final text of the agreement – accepted by the United States and by a meeting of donor nations in Paris – called for the “democratization” of state companies.
But when Aristide began to implement the plan, it turned out that the financiers in Washington thought his democratization talk was just public relations. When Aristide announced that no sales could take place until parliament had approved the new laws, Washington cried foul. Aristide says he realized then that what was being attempted was an “economic coup.” Now News

During the 2004 coup, Aristide tried to get word out as to what was happening.

March 2oo4, Democracy Now – Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was “kidnapped” and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. “He’s surrounded by military. It’s like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped,” said Waters. She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristide’s US security. Democracy Now

It didn’t matter. With few exceptions, the corporatist enabling US media stuck to the official story-line as, once again, the freely elected populist leader of yet another nation was removed to make way for globalist economic reforms.

First of all I think the people in this country should be outraged that our government led a coup de’tat against a democratically elected President. Maxine Waters, 2004

Enter the Great Messiah, President Barak (Look At My Peace Prize) Obama
How on earth could the first black president of the United States of America, a man who campaigned on his similarities to people like Martin Luther King and swore his oath of office on Lincolns own bible, be so insensitive to the people of Haiti as to send Bill Clinton and George W. Bush down there to “help” with the reconstruction of their country?

Jan. 2010, MSNBC – “By coming together in this way, these two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and to the people of the world,” Obama said in the Rose Garden, standing between Bush and Clinton. “In these difficult hours, America stands united. We stand united with the people of Haiti, who have shown such incredible resilience, and we will help them to recover and to rebuild.” MSNBC

The stark raving hypocrisy of that decision flies in the face of every single Haitian as well as any U.S. citizen who has bothered even a minimal amount of research into the history of Haiti.
Hillary Clinton, globalist extraordinaire, is rushing down to take charge of the operation while 10,000 U.S. troops are on their way. The last time U.S. troops set foot on their soil was just after the 2004 coup and now they are back in even greater numbers.
The U.S. military has taken over the airport and are controlling who and what gets into the nation while Hillary Clinton is arguing for martial law and complete control of Haitian government.

Jan. 17, 2010 – Despite guarantees, given by the United Nations and the US Defense Department, an MSF (Doctors Without Borders) cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, and was re-routed to Samana, in Dominican Republic. All material from the cargo is now being sent by truck from Samana, but this has added a 24-hour delay for the arrival of the hospital. MSF Website
Jan. 18 2010 WSWS – On Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Port-au-Prince at the invitation of Haitian President René Préval. She argued for the imposition of an emergency decree in Haiti, allowing for the imposition of curfews and martial-law conditions by US forces. Clinton explained: “The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us.” WSWS

It is a sickening display of raw disaster capitalism at it’s finest. These people are rushing in like swarm of flies.
Making it even worse, every single dollar that the well-meaning people of this nation will contribute to help the poor people stuck in this terrible tragedy, will be placed in the control of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to be held over the heads of the current leaders of that nation and used to compel them allow the free-market “restructuring” that they have been trying so hard to get for decades. They will take that money donated for good-will, and use it to enact the privatization schemes that will simply put massive amounts of money in their own pockets. They will direct that money into reconstruction programs handed off to the same list of cronie contractors who have been profiting from disasters and illegal occupations for decades under these monsters.
There must be a special kind of hell for humans like that. God, I wish there was. But unfortunately I’m an atheist, and I know better.
The kind of people who would take advantage of this level of human suffering in order to line their own pockets and advance their own corrupt agenda don’t deserve to be in charge of a lemonade stand, much less the vast sums of contributions of well-meaning, economically depressed citizens who are already suffering themselves due to the same corrupt people enacting the same Structural Reforms right here in America.
The irony of the entire situation is mind-boggling. Especially when you factor in “progressive” media figures like Maddow and Colbert are not only applauding the Clinton/Bush efforts, but are helping to lead the way to bleed their “progressive” flocks to donate as much as possible to the cause.
Of course, it’s in bad taste to talk about the bloody history of our neoliberal campaigns in Haiti. Every news agency will tell you so. They will ALL, every single one of them, avoid talking about these very same two ex-presidents and the corrupt, inhuman, unconstitutional, bloody campaigns they each led in their efforts to empower the international bankers and corporations against the people and the democracy of Haiti. To do so might just hinder the contributions to the Clinton/Bush Blackmail Haiti Fund.
also read:
1. The Militarization of Emergency Aid to Haiti:Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion? By Michel Chossudovsky
2. History of the Haitian Holocaust by Greg Palast
3. Bush, Clinton and the crimes of U.S. imperialism in Haiti by Patrick Martin
4. U.S. Military Tightens Grip on Haiti by Alex Lentier
5. Crushing Haiti; Now as Always by Patrick Cockburn

[Ed Jewett]

Crushing Haiti, Now as Always

January 17, 2010 by don



The not so reverend Pat Robertson recently claimed that the disastrous Haiti earthquake is God’s payback for a pact Haitian revolutionaries made with the Devil in order to get his help in evicting their French masters early in the 19th Century. Thank you Pat, it is indeed comforting to know that God works in mysterious ways that could be misconstrued as racism by lessor minds … but before invoking the comforting morality derived from Pat’s self-referencing ability to commune with the Almighty, it might be useful to consider the possibility of some not-so-comforting albeit less mysterious reasons for Haiti’s unending misery, including the more prosaic motives of naked greed and the exploitation of mankind’s better angels.



Here is Patrick Cockburn’s take on one set of secular possibilities.


Weekend Edition January 15-17, 2010


When Haitian Ministers Take a 50 Percent Cut of Aide Money It’s Called “Corruption,” When NGOs Skim 50 Percent It’s Called “Overhead”


Crushing Haiti, Now as Always
By PATRICK COCKBURN Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick01152010.html
[URL="http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick01152010.html"]
[/URL]

T he US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganized US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Four years ago President Bush was famously mute and detached when the levies broke in Louisiana. By way of contrast President Obama was promising Haitians that everything would be done for survivors within hours of the calamity.


The rhetoric from Washington has been very different during these two disasters, but the outcome may be much the same. In both cases very little aid arrived at the time it was most needed and, in the case of Port-au-Prince, when people trapped under collapsed buildings were still alive. When foreign rescue teams with heavy lifting gear does come it will be too late. No wonder enraged Haitians are building roadblocks out of rocks and dead bodies.


In New Orleans and Port-au-Prince there is the same official terror of looting by local people so the first outside help to arrive is in the shape of armed troops. The US currently has 3,500 soldiers, 2,200 Marines and 300 medical personnel on their way to Haiti.


Of course there will be looting because, with shops closed or flattened by the quake, this is the only way for people can get food and water. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. I was in Port-au-Prince in 1994, the last time US troops landed there, when local people systematically tore apart police stations, taking wood, pipes and even ripping nails out of the walls. In the police station I was in there were sudden cries of alarm from those looting the top floor as they discovered that they could not get back down to the ground because the entire wooden staircase had been chopped up and stolen.


I have always liked Haitians for their courage, endurance, dignity and originality. They often manage to avoid despair in the face of the most crushing disasters or the absence of any prospect that their lives will get better. Their culture, notably their painting and music, is among the most interesting and vibrant in the world.


It is sad to hear journalists who have rushed to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake give such misleading and even racist explanations of why Haitians are so impoverished, living in shanty towns with a minimal health service, little electricity supply, insufficient clean water and roads that are like river beds.


This did not happen by accident. In the 19th century it was as if the colonial powers never forgave Haitians for staging a successful slave revolt against the French plantation owners. US Marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934. Between 1957 and 1986 the US supported Papa Doc and Baby Doc, fearful that they might be replaced by a regime sympathetic to revolutionary Cuba next door.


President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic populist priest was overthrown by a military coup in 1991, and restored with US help in 1994. But the Americans were always suspicious of any sign of radicalism from this spokesman for the poor and the outcast and kept him on a tight leash.



Tolerated by President Clinton, Aristide was treated as a pariah by the Bush administration which systematically undermine him over three years leading up to a successful rebellion in 2004 led by local gangsters acting on behalf of a kleptocratic Haitian elite and supported by right wing members of the Republican Party in the US.


So much of the criticism of President Bush has focused on his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that his equally culpable actions in Haiti never attracted condemnation. But if the country is a failed state today, partly run by the UN, in so far as it is run by anybody, then American actions over the years have a lot to do with it.


Haitians are now paying the price for this feeble and corrupt government structure because there is nobody to coordinate the most rudimentary relief and rescue efforts. Its weakness is exacerbated because aid has been funneled through foreign NGOs. A justification for this is that less of the money is likely to be stolen, but this does not mean that much of it reaches the Haitian poor. A sour Haitian joke says that when a Haitian minister skims 15 per cent of aid money it is called ‘corruption’ and when an NGO or aid agency takes 50 per cent it is called ‘overhead’.


Many of the smaller government aid programs and NGOs are run by able, energetic and selfless people, but others, often the larger ones, are little more than rackets, highly remunerative for those who run them. In Kabul and Baghdad it is astonishing how little the costly endeavors of American aid agencies have accomplished. “The wastage of aid is sky-high,” said a former World Bank director in Afghanistan. “There is real looting going on, mostly by private enterprises. It is a scandal.” Foreign consultants in Kabul often receive $250,000 to $500,000 a year, in a country where 43 per cent of the population try to live on less than a dollar a day.


None of this bodes very well for Haitians hoping for relief in the short term or a better life in the long one. The only way this will really happen if the Haitians have a functioning and legitimate state capable of providing for the needs of its people. The US military, the UN bureaucracy or foreign NGOs are never going to do this in Haiti or anywhere else.


There is nothing very new in this. Americans often ask why it is that their occupation of Germany and Japan in 1945 succeeded so well but more than half a century later in Iraq and Afghanistan was so disastrous. The answer is that it was not the US but the efficient German and Japanese state machines which restored their countries. Where that machine was weak, as in Italy, the US occupation relied with disastrous results on corrupt and incompetent local elites, much as they do today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti.


Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of “Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq.”


http://donvandergriff.wordpress.com/2010.../#more-859

[Magda Hassan]

US accused of 'occupying' Haiti as troops flood in

France accused the US of "occupying" Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security.



By Aislinn Laing, and Tom Leonard in Port-au-Prince.
Published: 8:15PM GMT 18 Jan 2010





Members from the 84th US Air Force Division stand guard in the streets of Port-au-Prince Photo: EPA

People line up for food organized by the UN's World Food Program in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince Photo: AP

Earthquake victims rush to the back of a World Food Program truck as workers distribute food Photo: AP


The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to "clarify" the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts.
Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport's control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight.

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"This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti," Mr Joyandet said.
Geneva-based charity Medecins Sans Frontieres backed his calls saying hundreds of lives were being put at risk as planes carrying vital medical supplies were being turned away by American air traffic controllers.
But US commanders insisted their forces' focus was on humanitarian work and last night agreed to prioritise aid arrivals to the airport over military flights, after the intervention of the UN.
The diplomatic row came amid heightened frustrations that hundreds of tons of aid was still not getting through. Charities reported violence was also worsening as desperate Haitians took matters into their own hands.
The death toll is now estimated at up to 200,000 lives. Around three million Haitians – a third of the country's population – have been affected by Tuesday's earthquake and two million require food assistance.
While food and water was gradually arriving at the makeshift camps which have sprung up around the city, riots have broken out in other areas where supplies have still not materialised.
Haiti was occupied by the US between 1915 and 1935, and historical sensitivities together with friction with other countries over the relief effort has made the Americans cautious about their role in the operation.
American military commanders have repeatedly stressed that they are not entering the country as an occupying force.
US soldiers in Port-au-Prince said they had been told to be discreet about how they carry their M4 assault rifles.
A paratrooper sergeant said they were authorised to use "deadly force" if they see anyone's life in danger but only as a "last resort".
Capt John Kirby, a spokesman for the joint task force at the airport, said the US recognised it was only one of a number of countries contributing to a UN-led mission.
He also emphasised the US troops, which he said would rise to 10,000 by Wednesday would principally be assisting in humanitarian relief and the evacuation of people needing medical attention.
The main responsibility for security rests with the UN, which is to add a further 3,000 troops to its force of 9,000.
However, it was agreed on Sunday night that the Americans would take over security at the four main food and water distribution points being set up in the city, Capt Kirby said.
"Security here is in a fluid situation," he said. "If the Haitian government asked us to provide security downtown, we would do that." He played down the threat of violence, saying: "What we're seeing is that there are isolated incidents of violence and some pockets where it's been more restive, but overall it's calm."






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