7033: Slavin on Necklacing & #7011 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: pslavin@unicefusa.org

On Archim's point about Aristide's Palace speech after returning from United 
Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 29(?), 1991, my interviews with 
Préval Government (let's not forget that under the constitution, the PM serves 
as head of government, so comments about an Aristide Government 
are....unconstitutional) cabinet ministers just after the coup (who were in 
hiding) made it clear that Aristide was also motivated by palace intelligence 
of an imminent coup d'etat (pretty good intell). So bringing a crowd of 
supporters onto the Palace lawn (within easy eye- and ear-sight of general army 
hq) and reminding the army of what happened on January 7?, 1991 (the Lafontant 
coup), were parts of a signal that Haiti's people power was on call, 24/7. I've 
long argued that Aristide's remarks that day were justified.

Of course one of the many tragedies of this period was that the army (or more 
correctly, units within the army) also learned a lot from Jan. 7. Unlike 
Lafontant, they deployed killers into the street to put down pro-Aristide 
brigades. A lot of us, me included, failed to calculate the affect that 
automatic weapons have on unarmed civilians.

Patrick