[lbo-talk] Haiti: Who Is Guy Phillipe? Who Does He Represent? What Does He Want?

Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 4 06:59:03 PST 2004


An interesting turn of events: 'rebel leader' Guy Phillipe, who only a few days ago declared himself to be military head of Haiti has reportedly changed his mind after a meeting with the US Marine Commander -

Rebel Leader in Haiti Says His Work Is Done

By Carol J. Williams Times Staff Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As Marines in Humvees began patrolling this capital, rebel leader Guy Philippe declared his mission accomplished Wednesday and said his forces would lay down their arms now that Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had fled into exile.

More than 2,000 soldiers from nations including the United States, France, Canada and Chile have arrived in Haiti since Aristide left the country Sunday, but Port-au-Prince has continued to be plagued by looting, destruction and revenge killings.

[...]

full at -

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20040304/ts_latimes/rebelleaderinhaitisayshisworkisdone>

The official story is that Phillipe, confident the Marines -- along with soldiers from France, Canada and Chile -- will maintain order no longer sees a security or combatant role for his group. This sounds quite nice, but makes little sense. For starters, the foreign troops do not appear to be keeping order as the NPR story linked below describes (audio capability required):

<http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=04-Mar-2004&prgId=3>

(search on the page for a story titled "U.S. Marines to Police Haitian Streets ")

Also, it's certain Phillipe is expecting something in return for cooperation (this is human nature, yes?) - "democracy and security for Haiti" is the sanctioned story but this is hard to believe. Does anyone have background information on Phillipe and the group he fronts?

DRM



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