Pubdate: Sun, 16 May 2004
Source: Watertown Daily Times (NY)
Copyright: 2004 Watertown Daily Times
Contact:  http://www.wdt.net
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/792
Author: New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/areas/haiti

DRUG TRAFFICKERS FIND HAITI A HOSPITABLE PORT

CHEVALIER, Haiti - The riches that arrived in this tiny village came from 
the sea - not in fisherman's nets but in an abandoned speedboat that washed 
up last year stocked with dozens of cellophane-wrapped bricks of Colombian 
cocaine.

"Everyone else was grabbing it, so I took some," said Vital, a young 
fisherman. I gave it to my father, and the men came from Port-au-Prince to 
buy it for a lot of money."

The cargo taught this southern coastal village what Haitian police and 
government officials have known for years: The drug trade is one of the few 
ways in Haiti to amass a fortune.

This chaotic, impoverished country has been a bustling crossroads for 
moving Colombian cocaine to the United States for at least 20 years. But 
since the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb 29, 
investigators, diplomats and government officials describe emerging 
evidence of a state so riddled with drug money that it touched even the 
presidential palace, through Aristide's chief of security. What is still 
unanswered is whether those links reached Aristide himself. A senior 
Western diplomat who has been briefed on a federal investigation under way 
in Miami into drug ties in the Aristide government said an indictment of 
Aristide might be "a couple of months away."

Aristide denies any corruption, but the accusations against him represent 
the bottoming out of a long ambivalent relationship United States.

The Clinton administration used force to usher Aristide back to power in 
1994 after he was ousted in a coup. This year, as Aristide faced a 
rebellion, the Bush administration provided him with a jet to leave. "We're 
glade to see him go," Vice President Dick Cheney said.

Aristide claimed to have been kidnapped, and his supporters and others say 
the drug accusations are intended to intimidate the former president and 
discourage him from trying to reclaim his presidency by saying he was 
illegally removed.

"It seems very much to be a politically driven enterprise," Robert Maguire, 
director of programs in international affairs at Trinity College in 
Washington and an expert on Haiti. "Drug traffickers in Haiti has been 
around a very long time. So why now? I think they may be using this as 
leverage against him to marginalize his voice."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager