[Media-watch] BBC news report on Haiti

[Mark and Andrea]

The 10 o'clock bulletin tonight featured a report on Haiti. This stated that
the US had intervened in Haiti to 'stabilise the country'.
The US role in destabilising Haiti is well documented, and the BBC should
know better. Please write to Richard Sambrook (Head of BBC news) at
richard.sambrook at bbc.co.uk to correct this misleading coverage of events.
Further information is available at
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0208-05.htm and
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/index-bbb.html. My letter is below.
Cheers, Mark
  Dear Richard


  I feel impelled to write about misleading reporting of the role of the USA
in Haitian politics. The newsreader stated that the US had intervened in
Haiti to stabilise the country. It is certainly true that the US intervened
militarily and the effect of this was to remove a bloody military dictator.
What was not mentioned, as seems to be usual in reporting such events, was
the active role that the US had in creating the context within which such a
dictatorship could be established. These include:



    a.. Opposition to the election of Aristide in his first term of office,
to the extent of financing opposition candidates.
    b.. Bankrolling the bloody coup that overthrew Aristide's democratically
elected government. The coup leader, Lt. General Raul Cedras, was on the
payroll of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
    c.. The failure of the CIA to take steps to prevent the coup, despite,
as reported by Time Magazine at the time, their knowledge that it was to
take place.

  The foreign policy aims of the US in respect of this unfortunate country
have been well documented. For example, the original objectives of the
Clinton administration at the time of the US intervention in 1994, were to
leave the army and repressive apparatus in place, removing only the top
three officers. This was only prevented by the brutal behaviour of Haitian
soldiers in front of the TV cameras. A 1996 U.N. Human Rights Commission
report openly accused and harshly criticized the actions of the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Haiti, in their efforts to discredit President
Aristide and prevent his return to Haiti.
  In the words of Mark Weisbrot (co-director of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research - http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0208-05.htm) in
Washington, 'Haiti certainly has its own political and economic problems,
and Aristide has his faults. But the foremost obstacle to democracy and
economic recovery in Haiti remains, as it has been for many years, that cold
country to the North.'
  a.. Please ensure that reporting on Haiti is more balanced in future.

  Yours sincerely




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