ARISTIDEGarwin Davis, Assistant News Editor
RANDALL ROBINSON, former president of TransAfrica an African-American lobby group for Africa and the Caribbean and a close family friend of Jean-Bertrand Aristide said yesterday that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should assist in providing a home for the deposed Haitian president somewhere in the region.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner from his home in St. Kitts, Mr. Robinson, an American citizen and author of a recently released book "Quitting America" also charged that Mr. Aristide had been the victim of a grand conspiracy, which he insisted was aided and funded under the watchful eyes of the United States of America.
"He is a CARICOM head of state and a son of the Caribbean," Mr. Robinson said. "He should be here at home if not in Haiti then somewhere in the region. He should not be in the Central African Republic where he didn't ask to go. Somebody in CARICOM should have offered to make a home available to him it shouldn't be left to Mr. Aristide to make such a request. He shouldn't have to do that."
U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Sue Cobb said last week that it was surprising that "Aristide's presumed friends would not offer asylum".
CRITICISING
Mr. Robinson, however, was quick to add that he was not criticising the role the Caribbean body had played leading up to Mr. Aristide's ouster, adding that it could not have been easy for CARICOM to withstand the pressure that had been applied by the United States towards Haiti.
"CARICOM, having recognised the great power of the United States, acted with great care and prudence," he said. "It must be said though and this is not a criticism or an indictment that one would have wished that the seriousness CARICOM leaders showed at the end would have been applied from the very beginning."
Pressured by Opposition forces and militia groups as well as foreign powers such as France and the United States, Mr. Aristide last Sunday left Haiti for the Central African Republic where he is still being housed. However, only hours after his arrival there, reports started surfacing that his departure from Haiti had not been voluntary but that he had been coerced by the United States.
Mr. Robinson, a long-time friend of the Aristides and who in 1994 went on a 28-day hunger strike to protest against what he called President Bill Clinton's bankrupt policy towards Haitian refugees, said he spoke with the former Haitian president from his exiled home on Friday, describing him as being "as well as he can be given the circumstances".
He reiterated an earlier charge that Mr. Aristide had been kidnapped from his Haitian residence at gunpoint by U.S. Marines, adding that at no point was the deposed leader in charge of his own fate.
Mr. Robinson said that Mr. Aristide continues to "emphatically" deny that he had resigned and feels that a great disservice had been done to him. "The president called me on a cell phone that was slipped to him by someone he had no landline out to the world and no number at which he could be reached. He asked me to tell the world that it was a coup that led to his ouster. He said it three times 'this is a coup this is a coup, this is a coup'. He said that armed soldiers U.S. marines came in to the house and ordered them to use no phones and to come immediately. They were taken at gunpoint to the airport and put on a plane. His own security detachment was taken as well and they were put in a separate compartment of the plane. The president was kept with his wife Mildred with the shades of the plane down and when he asked where he was being taken, the soldiers told him they were
under orders not to give him that information."
PASSENGER
Mr. Robinson said that he has since made calls to members of the U.S. Congress, asking that they demand that the president be given an opportunity to speak about his ordeal.
"The essential point is clear, he did not resign," Mr. Robinson added. "The U.S. authorities, as they are apt to do, have been lying about everything the person I am most disappointed in is the Secretary of State a son of Jamaica - Colin Powell. His handling of this has been nothing short of tragic."
Asked to explain the reason the U.S. would have to want to see the back of Aristide so bad, especially since it was that country which had reinstated him to power in 1994 following his ouster by a military coup, Mr. Robinson said:
"It wasn't out of love for Aristide or the Haitian people why the United States stepped in to reinstate the president in 1994," he said. "Then President Clinton realised that he had to do something to stem the flow of Haitian refugees who were fleeing their country in great numbers for the mainland of Florida. My hunger strike too was getting a lot of attention and he was deftly afraid something could happen to me which would highlight even more America's cruel policy towards Haitian refugees. That was why he decided to help Aristide. We saw that as soon as Aristide was reinstated the refugee situation was brought under control."
Mr. Robinson said that with the Republicans taking over the U.S. Congress in 1994, America's hatred for Aristide only intensified.
"They saw that he could not be bought wasn't about to be their puppet," he said. "Mr. Aristide is self-possessed sees himself as the voice of the Haitian people. If he is owned by anybody then it is by the Haitian people. The U.S. did everything in its power to undermine his presidency - they blocked US$146 million in loans from the Inter-American Development Bank and even went as far as to provide funding and weaponry for the Opposition."
Asked what he felt should be CARICOM's next move, Mr. Robinson said: "They have to believe in strength in unity. We should always remember that what happened in Haiti could conceivably happen in other islands - we must never forget that."
