International Terrorism - The white House's Responsibility
The white House's international allies or henchmen, from Saddam Hussein to Ossana bin Laden, are proven
to have become the U.S. worst enemies. But yet the U.S. administration is not eager to stop creating further
similar threats to the American people. In Haiti or Venezuela, the support given armed gangs to destabilize
the democracy - that the Caribbean people demand and strive to build - would sooner or later end up, like
in the Middle East, into an anti-American sentiment and terrorism in the Caribbean.
By Ndzana Seme
An article in the French daily Le Figaro, 11 October 2001, confirmed that Osama bin Laden underwent
surgery in an American Hospital in Dubai in July, 2001.
During his stay in the hospital, he met with a CIA official. While on the World's "most wanted list", no
attempt was made to arrest him during his two week stay in the hospital, shedding doubt on the
Administration's resolve to track down Osama bin Laden.
A few days after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated that it is like "searching for
a needle in a stack of hay", meaning that it would be difficult to find him and extradite him. But the US could
have ordered his arrest and extradition in Dubai on July. But then they would not have had a pretext of
waging a war, Michel Chossudovsky commented on November 2001 in a CRG article .
"Having taken off from the Quetta airport in Pakistan, bin Laden was transferred to the hospital upon his
arrival at Dubai airport. He was accompanied by his personal physician and faithful lieutenant [...], four
bodyguards, as well as a male Algerian nurse, and admitted to the American Hospital, a glass and marble
building situated between the Al-Garhoud and Al-Maktoum bridges", Le Figaro reported.
"Each floor of the hospital has two "VIP" suites and fifteen rooms. The Saudi billionnaire was admitted to
the well-respected urology department run by Teerry Callaway, gallstone and infertility specialist [...]
"While he was hospitalised of 'a kidney infection that is propagating itself to the liver and requires
specialized treatment', bin Laden received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent
Saudis and Emiratis. During the hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was seen
taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to bin Laden's hospital room.
"A few days later, the CIA man bragged to a few friends about having visited bin Laden. Authorised
sources say that on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to Quetta, the CIA agent was called back to
headquarters."
The White House's response to these French newspaper revelations made one month after the 9/11 was a
deep, approving silence.
The Clinton Administration supported the "Militant Islamic Network". A 1997 Congressional report
provides evidence from official sources of the links between the Islamic Jihad and the US government ,
Chossudovsky wrote in another article.
In its efforts to defeat the Iranian Islamic Revolution that had turned against "the Americans" because of the
white House's support to the overthrown dictator Shah, the Reagan administration provided Saddam
Hussein with all the war equipment he needed, including chemical and biological weapons. Saddam
Hussein later became the white House's worst enemy it is currently so proud of having overthrown and
captured.
In Haiti, the Bush administration has just overthrown and deported Jean Bertrand Aristide, the
democratically elected president the Clinton administration had reinstalled in power after a military coup.
The white House apparently tries to replace Aristide with its henchmen, including Gerard Latortue, a U.N.
official and a long time U.S. resident. In fact, it will be easy for the Bush administration to make the
Latortue government look more successful than the Aristide's, by simply opening the international
assistance's gate he requires - which was denied to Aristide - in order to become a strong U.S.-backed
presidential candidate during the coming polls.
Aristide, an extremely popular priest when he became Haiti?s first freely elected president in 1990, claims
he is still Haiti?s legitimate leader and seeks asylum in the neighbouring island of Jamaica. Latortue denied
that Friday, fearing that the trip to Jamaica might lead to negotiations for the former president?s return.
MSNBC reported that a U.S. and Jamaican delegation was scheduled to fly out of Miami on Saturday for
Africa to escort Aristide back to the Caribbean. Delegates include U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters
and a representative of Patterson, African-American activist Randall Robinson told The Associated Press.
Robinson also would be on the plane.
TransafricaForum described the the Bush administration-backed Haitian opposition and rebel forces as
follows:
- Andre Apaid, Jr., U.S. citizen and a sweatshop owner in Haiti is one of the leaders of the opposition to
oust President Aristide. He represents a small section of elite wealthy Haitians who have opposed Aristide
and his Lavalas party from his first election forward. Opposition members have refused an offer of new
elections, and have refused solutions brokered by internal groups like the council of Catholic Bishops, and
external groups like CARICOM. The United States made no efforts to pressure the opposition to come to
the negotiating table.
- Members of the armed rebels who claim victory and walk freely in Haiti are among others: Guy Phillipe,
trained by the U.S. in Ecuador, convicted of a previous coup attempt and known to the US D.E.A as a
drug trafficker; and Louis-Jodel Chamblain, former member of FRAPH, a death squad responsible for the
deaths of thousands of Haitians.
- Reports indicate that the opposition parties were financed through USAID and the International
Republican Institute.
Substantial military weaponry was delivered to the Dominican Republic within the past few months (the
reasons for which Roger Noriega, Under Secretary of State, was unaware). These weapons, M16?s,
M-60?s and others, are believed to have found their way into the hands of rebel forces.
- Despite a substantial military presence on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the rebel
forces, including the above-mentioned convicted felons in exile, entered Haiti early this year as the
opposition was resisting any efforts at peaceful or democratic solutions.
Since the Bush administration's orders to disarm the Haitian gangs are doomed to fail - because 2,500
international troops cannot do better than the Clinton's 20,000 Marines could in 1994 - it is not exagerated
to prefigure that Guy Philippe and other current White House-backed thugs are the future Caribbean
Osamas. Which confirms St Just's saying that a people has only one dangerous enemy; its government.
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