Y'all remember Bill Clinton doing this to Haitians?
- Thread starter DaAssWatcher
- Start date
Devils.
It's an election year. Still not voting for Trump.
It's an election year. Still not voting for Trump.
If anyone wants to know what REAL drug king pins look like..
Look no further than this thread.....
Look no further than this thread.....
Another vote for Trump post....
Oh no Bill Clinton waited to fully understand the implications of his actions.,
June 1994, Volume 1, Number 5
Clinton Changes US Policy on Haitian Refugees
On May 9, President Bill Clinton announced major changes in US policy toward Haiti, reflecting increasing impatience with the failure of Haiti's military leadership to restore democracy. The president announced that the INS would conduct asylum hearings for Haitian refugees intercepted at sea, reversing the policy of returning Haitians and instructing them to submit their applications for asylum in Haiti. Clinton also announced the appointment of a Haitian special envoy--William Gray, the head of the United Negro College Fund and a former House majority whip.
Allowed them in like white Cubans who float in over here in rafts.How many of them get detained for a year plus and end up getting deported??
OP, all the clinton threads in the world won't get Bernie elected. Why don't you put your energy into posting shit about the Republicans for a change.
Because everything you think is bad about Bill or Hillary is 10 times worse with them - at least.
Because everything you think is bad about Bill or Hillary is 10 times worse with them - at least.
Every time you come against you'll lose.
Hold this L.
Washington shuts door on Haitian refugees
By Tom Eley
20 January 2010
The Obama administration has taken extraordinary measures to prevent desperate Haitians from entering the US since a January 12 earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation, killing an estimated 200,000, making at least 1.5 million homeless, and orphaning 1 million children. The effort to bar Haitians from entering the US—including the wounded seeking medical treatment—illustrates that the priority of the US-led intervention is not to save lives, but to establish military control over the population.
Five US Coast Guard ships have joined US Navy vessels deployed off Haiti’s coast—not to deliver food, water, and medicine to the sick and dying, but to stop any Haitians who might attempt to escape. Coast Guard commander Chris O’Neil told the New York Times that anyone fleeing Haiti would be seized and sent back, but that so far his units have witnessed no attempts. “None, zero,” O’Neil said, “and no indication of anyone making preparations to do so.”
US officials say there is little evidence of Haitians leaving for the US, but “they worry that in the coming weeks, worsening conditions in Haiti could spur an exodus.” That US officials are planning for “worsening conditions” in Haiti over the “coming weeks”—beyond the desperate situation that prevails there now—is a damning admission that Washington has no intention to make available widespread relief, much less rebuild Haiti.
The Obama administration is also making plans to incarcerate Haitians who might attempt the dangerous sea voyage to the US, which every year claims the lives of hundreds. Officials told the Times they are “laying plans to scoop up any boats carrying illegal immigrants and send them to Guantánamo Bay”—the US military base in Cuba notorious for the abuse of “terror suspects”. The Department of Homeland Security has announced it will clear out space in its south Florida deportation prison, the Krome Service Processing Center, in case of an influx of Haitians.
State Department spokesman Noel Clay announced the US would not relax its visa requirements for Haitians. The strict visa policy extends to the earthquake’s estimated one million orphans—10 percent of Haiti’s population. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that the US will take a handful of orphans on “humanitarian parole.” The policy applies to those who were documented orphans before the earthquake and who were already slated to be adopted by US families. On Monday, about 50 Haitian children already cleared for adoption in the US arrived at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Children’s Hospital, after their orphanage collapsed in the earthquake.
The State Department has gone so far as to refuse visas for sick and dying Haitians seeking treatment at an emergency field hospital adjacent to Miami’s airport. Dr. William O’Neill, dean of the University of Miami medical school, which established the hospital, called the callous policy “beyond insane.” The State Department is headed by Secretary Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband former President Bill Clinton, has postured as a friend to Haiti’s earthquake survivors.
The measures to stop Haitians from seeking refuge in the US border on the sadistic. While the US has refused to allow numerous relief flights to land at the Port-au-Prince airport, each day, a US Air Force cargo plane has circled for hours above Haiti’s desperate population broadcasting the following Creole-language radio message: “Listen, don’t rush on boats to leave the country. If you do that, we’ll all have even worse problems. Because, I’ll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the US and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”
The Miami Herald reported Tuesday that the US has banned commercial flights from Haiti, not because of damage to the airport, but because potential passengers cannot be screened against terrorist watch-lists and put through metal detectors. Spirit Airlines and American Airlines have been flying cargo and relief workers into Port-au-Prince since last Wednesday, but their flights return “with hundreds of empty seats.” An exception came Monday, when a few dozen US college students and Fox reporter Geraldo Rivera were granted a security clearance by the State Department and flown back on Spirit.
Spirit and American say they have been flooded with requests from people attempting to buy tickets to fly out and are losing revenue. “People are always calling us’’ for Haiti flights, Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson told theHerald. “We’re inundated.”
The State Department has exempted private charter flights from Haiti from the “anti-terror” requirements. These firms can call in the names of passengers who rent airplanes for as much as $4,000 an hour or can afford $1,000 for a one-way ticket to Florida.
The sheer indifference and cruelty of the US embargo against Haitians coming to the US was underscored by an on-the-spot report broadcast Tuesday by CBS radio news describing thousands of Port-au-Prince residents crowding the beach in a desperate effort to board already overcrowded ferries.
The US efforts to keep out Haitian refugees stands in sharp contrast to its efforts, led by Bill Clinton, to promote the relocation of cheap-labor garment industry sweatshops in Haiti. The extreme poverty in Haiti is the result of decades of American capitalism’s domination.
Don't ever attempt to come for me.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/01/hait-j20.html?view=article_mobile
The reason why Cubans got asylum in the first place was because they were considered as fleeing from persecution after Fidel took control, Haitians were leaving their country for economical reason which isn't a reason to qualify for asylum. Yeah I'm still fucked up but it was two different situations.
Republicans are to busy trying to pretend this nightmare isn't really happening. Hillary's been a devil and I will continue to expose her and her husbands evil ways.
They sure are cozy with the Bushes and Trump.....
They were fleeing oppression at those times.You thought shit was sweet because Baby Doc got chased out the country in mid 80s???Look how many Presidents after him didn't even serve a full year in office.
You think anthing you posted hasn't been posted 10000 times before? You gonna expose Obama as being black next?
Did some dictator take over the country?
You think people don't know the republicans ain't shit?I'm shining a light on the DemocRATS to.
It was coup after coup from military generals and officers.
Fuck all those white cubans. If the Haitians did not deserve asylum due the threat of violence from the police, homosexual westerners with aids, extreme famine and decades of western intervention (FAR worse than anything Castro was doing), then fuck a cuban asylum.
Fuck Clinton and his wife....not gonna be able to do it this time, democrats.
Fuck Clinton and his wife....not gonna be able to do it this time, democrats.
Has nothing to do with your original post idiot.
Now you moved the goal post to 13 years later after an earthquake. You would be bitching if they let all the immigrants in. Just like a pos republican.
A President is in photos with other ex Presidents...astounding. Politicians run into other politicians....unheard of!
The biggest theft that the Clinton's are involved in is the hundreds-of-millions to billions of HAITI Earthquake Relief money. Bill Clinton was put in charge of a huge chunk of that money......and.....surprise,surprise....the Haitian people have seen NONE of that money. So far Clinton has cut a deal with Marriott to build a luxury hotel in Haiti. Where is the rest of the relief money???? This Clinton theft is the most uncovered news story in the Western Hemisphere.
Despite all of the above, Hillary will most likely get the Democratic nomination for POTUS and win the election. Imagine how much richer they will become as they pay off the contributors who pumped millions into the Clinton Foundation and Chelsea Clinton husband's fledgling hedge fund.
Despite all of the above, Hillary will most likely get the Democratic nomination for POTUS and win the election. Imagine how much richer they will become as they pay off the contributors who pumped millions into the Clinton Foundation and Chelsea Clinton husband's fledgling hedge fund.
"Less than a penny of every dollar goes directly to a Haitian organization."
Bill, Hillary And The HAITI DEBACLE
Haitians are upset by the reconstruction effort managed by the Clintons.
by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY | May 18, 2014
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304547704579564651201202122
The news website Tout Haiti reported last month that two prominent lawyers have petitioned Haiti's Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, demanding an audit of Bill Clinton's management of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). There are powerful interests that won't want to see the petition succeed and it may go nowhere. But the sentiment it expresses is spreading fast. In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, Mr. Clinton has gone from hero to goat.
Four years after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake toppled the capital city of Port-au-Prince and heavily damaged other parts of the country, hundreds of millions of dollars from the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), allocated to the IHRC, are gone. Hundreds of millions more to the IHRC from international donors have also been spent. Left behind is a mishmash of low quality, poorly thought-out development experiments and half-finished projects.
Haitians are angry, frustrated and increasingly suspicious of the motives of the IHRC and of its top official, Mr. Clinton. Americans might feel the same way if they knew more about this colossal failure. One former Haitian official puts it this way: "I really cannot understand how you could raise so much money, put a former U.S. president in charge, and get this outcome."
Allow me to hazard a guess: While Mr. Clinton was running things for the IHRC, and the U.S. was leading the reconstruction effort, Hillary Clinton was the U.S. Secretary of State, which means that Mr. Clinton was reporting to his wife. Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff and counselor to the State Department (an adviser and consultant to the secretary), traveled to the country an estimated 30 times in four years. A State Department spokesman told me that "reflected the high priority the United State places on Haiti's recovery and development." Requests for comment from Mr. Clinton, through the Clinton Foundation, about the petition and his IHRC record went unanswered.
The Clinton crowd has a lot of experience in Haiti. After President Clinton used the U.S. military to return Jean Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994, assorted Friends of Bill went into business to milk Haiti's state-owned telephone monopoly. Telecom revenues were one of the few sources of hard currency for the country so the scheme hurt Haitians. (See Americas columns Oct. 27, 2008, and March 12, 2012.)
Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck sheds light on Mr. Clinton's most recent Haiti adventures in the 2013 documentary "Fatal Assistance." Mr. Peck uses footage from an IHRC meeting in December 2010, when 12 Haitian commissioners confronted co-chairmen Mr. Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, complaining that the commissioners had been marginalized.
The full letter they read from that day includes the charge that "the staffing and consultant selection" excluded Haitian board members. "No documentation on hiring criteria or candidate selection was sent to inform board members. The same is true for selected consultants; the Haitian board members don't even know the names of the consultants who work for the IHRC nor their respective tasks."
Obviously the Haitians didn't understand. That was the job of the Clinton machine, which controlled the bankroll and could award the lucrative contracts.
A June 2013 Government Accountability Office report gave a barely passing grade to USAID's Haiti reconstruction effort. It said $170 million was allocated to build a power plant and a port near the Caracol Industrial Park, not far from Cap-Haïtien. The two projects "are interdependent; each must be completed and remain viable for the other to succeed," the GAO explained. The first phase of the power plant was completed on time and under budget. But the port construction was delayed by two years "due in part to a lack of USAID expertise in port planning in Haiti." Projected costs, according to the report, say the estimated shortfall of $117 million to $189 million is larger than originally estimated. "It is unclear whether the Haitian government will be able to find a private sector company willing to finance the remainder of the project."
The "Fatal Assistance" film features shoddy housing projects plopped down where there is poor infrastructure and few job prospects. The GAO report cites other housing snafus. USAID underestimated funding requirements. Its budget went up by 65%, and the number of houses to be built came down by 80%. "Inappropriate cost comparisons were used"; and Haitians, it turns out, prefer flush toilets.
Foreign aid is notoriously wasteful and often counterproductive. Even when the money is not going directly to Swiss bank accounts it is rarely allocated to its highest use because the process is fundamentally political. Contractors with all the wrong training and incentives but the right connections have the best chance of winning jobs. No surprise, the GAO says that USAID's Haiti reports have been incomplete and not timely.
Haitians are bitterly disappointed. But with Mr. Clinton in charge, supervised by Mrs. Clinton and her State Department sidekick, the outcome was predictable.
Last edited:
You mean the party that controls the house and senate? As a result of people like you
More bullshit...
The foundation has been audited and shows exactly where all the money goes. Look it up.
NONE of the money huh..
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Deep in the Haitian countryside, peanut farmer Wismith Moricette epitomizes the success of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s charitable work: Through an innovative program backed by the Clintons, the 23-year-old has doubled the yield from his one-acre plot. Along with all those peanuts, Moricette said, have come visions of a brighter future for his wife and young son.
The only people trying to help will always get the blame for failures.
amid Haiti’s chaotic political situation — parliament is not functioning and President Michel Martelly, dogged by scandal, is ruling with virtually no checks on his power — which is marked by endemic corruption, weak institutions, poverty, poor public education, terrible roads and other factors that have historically made it extremely difficult for development efforts to succeed.
Paul Farmer, a doctor whose Partners in Health has helped provide medical care in rural Haiti since the 1980s and whose health network has received more than $1.8 million from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for a medical residency program, also praised the Clintons’ work. He said he forged partnerships at CGI meetings with private businesses and other charities for a variety of projects he said would not have taken place without the Clinton connection.
He said that by any objective measure, Haiti has been improving, in part because of the Clintons’ efforts.
Let us read an article from that anti-capitalism Marxist-Leninist publication, owned by the famous communist agitator Rupert Murdoch who via his
Bill, Hillary And The HAITI DEBACLE
Haitians are upset by the reconstruction effort managed by the Clintons.
by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY | May 18, 2014
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304547704579564651201202122
The news website Tout Haiti reported last month that two prominent lawyers have petitioned Haiti's Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, demanding an audit of Bill Clinton's management of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). There are powerful interests that won't want to see the petition succeed and it may go nowhere. But the sentiment it expresses is spreading fast. In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, Mr. Clinton has gone from hero to goat.
Four years after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake toppled the capital city of Port-au-Prince and heavily damaged other parts of the country, hundreds of millions of dollars from the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), allocated to the IHRC, are gone. Hundreds of millions more to the IHRC from international donors have also been spent. Left behind is a mishmash of low quality, poorly thought-out development experiments and half-finished projects.
Haitians are angry, frustrated and increasingly suspicious of the motives of the IHRC and of its top official, Mr. Clinton. Americans might feel the same way if they knew more about this colossal failure. One former Haitian official puts it this way: "I really cannot understand how you could raise so much money, put a former U.S. president in charge, and get this outcome."
Allow me to hazard a guess: While Mr. Clinton was running things for the IHRC, and the U.S. was leading the reconstruction effort, Hillary Clinton was the U.S. Secretary of State, which means that Mr. Clinton was reporting to his wife. Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff and counselor to the State Department (an adviser and consultant to the secretary), traveled to the country an estimated 30 times in four years. A State Department spokesman told me that "reflected the high priority the United State places on Haiti's recovery and development." Requests for comment from Mr. Clinton, through the Clinton Foundation, about the petition and his IHRC record went unanswered.
The Clinton crowd has a lot of experience in Haiti. After President Clinton used the U.S. military to return Jean Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994, assorted Friends of Bill went into business to milk Haiti's state-owned telephone monopoly. Telecom revenues were one of the few sources of hard currency for the country so the scheme hurt Haitians. (See Americas columns Oct. 27, 2008, and March 12, 2012.)
Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck sheds light on Mr. Clinton's most recent Haiti adventures in the 2013 documentary "Fatal Assistance." Mr. Peck uses footage from an IHRC meeting in December 2010, when 12 Haitian commissioners confronted co-chairmen Mr. Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive, complaining that the commissioners had been marginalized.
The full letter they read from that day includes the charge that "the staffing and consultant selection" excluded Haitian board members. "No documentation on hiring criteria or candidate selection was sent to inform board members. The same is true for selected consultants; the Haitian board members don't even know the names of the consultants who work for the IHRC nor their respective tasks."
Obviously the Haitians didn't understand. That was the job of the Clinton machine, which controlled the bankroll and could award the lucrative contracts.
A June 2013 Government Accountability Office report gave a barely passing grade to USAID's Haiti reconstruction effort. It said $170 million was allocated to build a power plant and a port near the Caracol Industrial Park, not far from Cap-Haïtien. The two projects "are interdependent; each must be completed and remain viable for the other to succeed," the GAO explained. The first phase of the power plant was completed on time and under budget. But the port construction was delayed by two years "due in part to a lack of USAID expertise in port planning in Haiti." Projected costs, according to the report, say the estimated shortfall of $117 million to $189 million is larger than originally estimated. "It is unclear whether the Haitian government will be able to find a private sector company willing to finance the remainder of the project."
The "Fatal Assistance" film features shoddy housing projects plopped down where there is poor infrastructure and few job prospects. The GAO report cites other housing snafus. USAID underestimated funding requirements. Its budget went up by 65%, and the number of houses to be built came down by 80%. "Inappropriate cost comparisons were used"; and Haitians, it turns out, prefer flush toilets.
Foreign aid is notoriously wasteful and often counterproductive. Even when the money is not going directly to Swiss bank accounts it is rarely allocated to its highest use because the process is fundamentally political. Contractors with all the wrong training and incentives but the right connections have the best chance of winning jobs. No surprise, the GAO says that USAID's Haiti reports have been incomplete and not timely.
Haitians are bitterly disappointed. But with Mr. Clinton in charge, supervised by Mrs. Clinton and her State Department sidekick, the outcome was predictable.
Last edited:
If you notice Trump and Hillary events have people protesting them.But why aren't people protesting the evil Jew as you see him??
dude Cubans are still allowed to stay if they reached the shore 50 years after Fidel.
Haitians were fleeing persecution of the US backed Poppa D0c, Baby Doc and Aristide not to mention a horrific earthquake.
The Clintons: “We Came, We Stole, Haitians Died”
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
“The discrediting of the elections would also reflect very badly on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
The island nation of Haiti is on the verge of finally ejecting the criminal President Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, the dance hall performer and gangster who was foisted on the Haitian people by the United States through the bullying of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, back in 2011. Martelly’s term is up, and he is constitutionally required to leave office by February 7. Martelly and his American, French and Canadian backers had hoped to use rigged elections and strong-arm tactics to install another puppet politician, Jovenel “The Banana Man” Moise, in the presidential palace. The “Banana Man” – who wants to turn Haiti into a real banana-exporting republic, to the further impoverishment of its small farmers – came in first in an October election that was so blatantly stolen, even the thoroughly corrupt Haitian elite could not endorse the outcome.
In fact, virtually no one in Haitian society except the “Banana Man” and “Sweet Mickey” and the tens thousands of Haitians who were paid to vote, repeatedly, at different polling places in October, considered the election to be valid. Jude Célestin, the candidate that came in second in the October electoral farce – and who was also cheated of victory by “Sweet Mickey” Martelly in the election five years ago – refused to go along with the travesty. Célestin said he would not take part in the bogus run-off election that was scheduled for this past Sunday – meaning, the “Banana Man” would have been the only candidate.
“Hillary and Bill were the Bonnie and Clyde of Haiti.”
But, even the prospect of a one-man contest could not stop the Americans from insisting on going ahead with the run-off. The U.S., which pays for the Haitian elections and, therefore, believes it has the right to decide who wins and who loses, growled that Haiti should go along with the fraudulent process. The Americans were upset that they might have no reliable replacement for their loyal puppet, “Sweet Mickey.” Plus, the discrediting of the elections would also reflect very badly on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who claims to have brought stability to Haiti when she was at the State Department but, in fact, is culpable for all of the Haitians who were murdered by the Martelly regime. The truth is that Hillary and Bill were the Bonnie and Clyde of Haiti, robbing the country for their own and other corporate criminals’ benefit. The teams of FBI agents that are now matching Hillary’s emails with contributions to the Clinton Foundation are tapping a Mother Lode of corruption that may yet bring her down before Election Day in the United States.
If that happens, the Haitian people will deserve some of the credit for saving the U.S. from another period of rule by the Crooked Clintons, in the process of saving Haiti’s sovereignty and self-respect. The Haitians’ furious grassroots resistance forced the cancellation of Sunday’s run-off election; “Sweet Mickey” is slated to leave office in less than two weeks; and negotiations are underway to form an interim government that would hold clean elections. The struggle now is for Haiti’s poor majority to make its voice heard above the growling of the U.S. imperialist occupiers and their hired Haitian flunkies – some of whom are real killers, whose names aren’t funny at all.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
“The discrediting of the elections would also reflect very badly on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
The island nation of Haiti is on the verge of finally ejecting the criminal President Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, the dance hall performer and gangster who was foisted on the Haitian people by the United States through the bullying of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, back in 2011. Martelly’s term is up, and he is constitutionally required to leave office by February 7. Martelly and his American, French and Canadian backers had hoped to use rigged elections and strong-arm tactics to install another puppet politician, Jovenel “The Banana Man” Moise, in the presidential palace. The “Banana Man” – who wants to turn Haiti into a real banana-exporting republic, to the further impoverishment of its small farmers – came in first in an October election that was so blatantly stolen, even the thoroughly corrupt Haitian elite could not endorse the outcome.
In fact, virtually no one in Haitian society except the “Banana Man” and “Sweet Mickey” and the tens thousands of Haitians who were paid to vote, repeatedly, at different polling places in October, considered the election to be valid. Jude Célestin, the candidate that came in second in the October electoral farce – and who was also cheated of victory by “Sweet Mickey” Martelly in the election five years ago – refused to go along with the travesty. Célestin said he would not take part in the bogus run-off election that was scheduled for this past Sunday – meaning, the “Banana Man” would have been the only candidate.
“Hillary and Bill were the Bonnie and Clyde of Haiti.”
But, even the prospect of a one-man contest could not stop the Americans from insisting on going ahead with the run-off. The U.S., which pays for the Haitian elections and, therefore, believes it has the right to decide who wins and who loses, growled that Haiti should go along with the fraudulent process. The Americans were upset that they might have no reliable replacement for their loyal puppet, “Sweet Mickey.” Plus, the discrediting of the elections would also reflect very badly on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who claims to have brought stability to Haiti when she was at the State Department but, in fact, is culpable for all of the Haitians who were murdered by the Martelly regime. The truth is that Hillary and Bill were the Bonnie and Clyde of Haiti, robbing the country for their own and other corporate criminals’ benefit. The teams of FBI agents that are now matching Hillary’s emails with contributions to the Clinton Foundation are tapping a Mother Lode of corruption that may yet bring her down before Election Day in the United States.
If that happens, the Haitian people will deserve some of the credit for saving the U.S. from another period of rule by the Crooked Clintons, in the process of saving Haiti’s sovereignty and self-respect. The Haitians’ furious grassroots resistance forced the cancellation of Sunday’s run-off election; “Sweet Mickey” is slated to leave office in less than two weeks; and negotiations are underway to form an interim government that would hold clean elections. The struggle now is for Haiti’s poor majority to make its voice heard above the growling of the U.S. imperialist occupiers and their hired Haitian flunkies – some of whom are real killers, whose names aren’t funny at all.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
Mena
Clinton chilling with the Bushes ain't just running into someone.It's clear they have a very cozy relationship.George Sr. and Clinton Master and apprentice.
And if these guys regularly run into each other as you say this cover wouldn't be labeled "the most surprising couple in politics".
And why would I be upset that Haitians were allowed into America after this country did to fuck them over for hundreds of years???
To be fair it wasn't just Haiti.....
Refusing to Call It Genocide: Documents Show Clinton Administration Ignored Mass Killings in Rwanda
APRIL 07, 2014
STORY
WATCH FULL SHOW
20 Years Later, Rwanda Commemorates Genocide the World Ignored
Declassified U.S. documents show the Clinton administration refused to label the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda as a genocide. One State Department document read: "Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'" At a press briefing in 1994, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner asked: "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?" State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley responded, "Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer." Samantha Power, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the U.S. inaction in her 2001 article, "Bystanders to Genocide." She wrote, "The United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements." We speak to Emily Willard of the National Security Archive, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Scott Straus, author of "The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We continue our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. We go first to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Emily Willard. She’s a research associate at the National Security Archive. The organization is running the Rwanda 20 Years Later project, which is part of its broader Genocide Prevention Project. Willard and her team are utilizing formerly classified documents released by the Defense Intelligence Agency to help bring accountability for the atrocity.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emily. Start off by telling us what you have—what you feel is the most important of the documents you have released.
EMILY WILLARD: I think one of the most important documents that we’ve released is, over the years, we’ve—one of the key documents shows the U.S.'s and the international community's failure to intervene in Rwanda when the genocide was already occurring. There’s a Department of Defense memo sent to the National Security Council. It’s a one-page, three-paragraph memo, clearly saying that there’s an idea that the United States could jam the radios, the national radio program in Rwanda that were inciting the massacres. And this document clearly says that a decision was made that it would be ineffective and too expensive to jam the radios, and that it would be cheaper for the United States and more efficient to follow up after the violence had ended with aid support. So this clearly shows U.S. apprehension in getting militarily involved and, you know, going for the after-the-fact relief. However, key documents—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the key—the key point here, for people who aren’t familiar with this, is the role of the radio in the genocide, the incitement to kill Tutsis, calling them, most famously, "cockroaches."
EMILY WILLARD: Yes, yes. And while this document is certainly key—and we’ve had this one for a while—the remaining key documents that really will tell the behind-the-scenes about how some of these key decisions were made are still classified. And they’re bogged down in the declassification process. So, unfortunately, some of the very key documents that we really need as an international community to understand how these key decisions were made are still not available to the public. And we’re in the process of working with the government to get them declassified, but, unfortunately, those key behind-the-scenes conversations are not available to the public.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to some of the clips of U.S. officials. The United States government carefully avoided using the word "genocide" to describe what was happening in Rwanda. This is a clip from the PBS Frontline documentary Ghosts of Rwanda. It begins a State Department briefing, April 28th, 1994.
REPORTER 1: —comment on that, or a view as to whether or not what is happening could be genocide?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Well, as I think you know, the use of the term "genocide" has a very precise legal meaning, although it’s not strictly a legal determination. There are—there are other factors in there, as well. When—in looking at a situation to make a determination about that, before we begin to use that term, we have to know as much as possible about the facts of the situation.
REPORTER 2: Just out of curiosity, given that so many people say that there is genocide underway, or something that strongly resembles it, why wouldn’t this convention be invoked?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think, as you know, this becomes a legal definitional thing, unfortunately, in terms of—as horrendous as all these things are, there becomes a definitional question.
AMY GOODMAN: Madeleine Albright, then-secretary of state, speaking in ’94. Seven weeks into the genocide, then-President Bill Clinton restated U.S. policy on intervening in foreign conflicts.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: The end of the superpower standoff lifted the lid from a cauldron of long-simmering hatreds. Now the entire global terrain is bloody with such conflicts, from Rwanda to Georgia. Whether we get involved in any of the world’s ethnic conflicts, in the end, must depend on the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Clinton. During a press conference in June ’94, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner questioned State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley on how she would describe the events taking place in Rwanda.
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.
ALAN ELSNER: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer.
ALAN ELSNER: Is it true that the—that you have specific guidance not use the word "genocide" in isolation, but always to preface it with this—this word, "acts of"?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: I have guidance, which—to which I—which I try to use as best as I can. I’m not—I have—there are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the State Department spokesperson, Christine Shelley, being questioned by the Reuters correspondent, Alan Elsner. Scott Straus is also with us now, in addition to Emily Willard. Scott Straus is professor of political science and international studies at UW-Madison. He has written several books on Rwanda, including The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Professor Straus, the significance of the U.S. response at the time, not willing to call what was happening a genocide?
SCOTT STRAUS: Well, the U.S. was one of the key actors at the time. And, you know, the policy was clearly not to get involved in Rwanda. But the U.S.—and as the leading actor on the international stage at that time, the U.S.'s actions were critical. But the U.S. wasn't acting alone. I mean, Britain and Belgium at that time and within the bureaucracy of the United Nations, there was a real reluctance to get involved.
AMY GOODMAN: And France, as well, of course, leading to the fight that’s happening today with the delegation, the high-level delegation, pulling out of the genocide commemorations because of Kagame saying that the French were responsible.
SCOTT STRAUS: Yeah, the French had a much more controversial history with Rwanda, both before the genocide and even during the genocide. France was the leading ally of the regime in Rwanda, the regime that ultimately orchestrated the genocide. So the controversy is really: How much did they know? When did they know? Were they—some people accuse them of being involved in the preparations for genocide. I think that goes too far. But nonetheless, they were—they were the main ally of the regime that orchestrated genocide, and so that’s one of the reasons why their role has been so controversial in this particular history.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2001, Samantha Power, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote an article in The Atlantic magazine called "Bystanders to Genocide." In it, she wrote, quote, "the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. ... The United States in fact did virtually nothing 'to try to limit what occurred.' ... In order not to appreciate that genocide or something close to it was under way, U.S. officials had to ignore public reports and internal intelligence and debate," she wrote. At the time, she was founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, now, of course, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and she is leading the U.S. delegation at the Rwandan commemorations. Emily Willard, the significance of this and the documents that you have that are the underlying documents to the kind of statements you were hearing from President Clinton to Madeleine Albright, then the secretary of state?
EMILY WILLARD: Yes, the debate around whether or not the genocide had actually occurred was very clear right after the plane was shot down and the violence started. There was a debate going on with the Department of State. And at the end of—it wasn’t until the end of April that it was declared publicly that acts of genocide had occurred, and then not until the beginning of May that the secretary of state came out and said that a genocide had occurred. And you see in the documents, the reporting within the State Department, a very clear hesitation to not overestimate the number of people who were being killed. And actually, very interestingly, as the process of getting the documents declassified, there are examples where the United States, in the documents, says, "We’re not sure if, you know, 500,000, it is an exaggeration." And in the first release of the document that—that sentence was redacted, because even after the genocide happened, there’s still a hesitation to be clear and open about what the intelligence was and how those—that analysis of the intelligence was handled.
AMY GOODMAN: And the Dallaire fax, the significance of this, Professor Straus, if you could comment on this, the head of the U.N. peacekeepers writing to the United Nations that a genocide was about to take place?
SCOTT STRAUS: So I think that, you know, people have gone back and looked, and there have been clear warnings that something really terrible was happening, including the possibility of genocide or extermination. And the significance of the January memo that Dallaire wrote was a clear warning to United Nations headquarters in New York that there were efforts to train militia, that there was stockpiling of weapons, there was a clear warning that there was going to be significant violence against Tutsi civilians, even possibility of extermination. And Dallaire was essentially requesting some type of authorization to be aggressive in uncovering those stockpiles of weapons and so forth. And the U.N. headquarters was essentially risk-averse, said, "Don’t do it. You know, don’t get involved." And so, this was a real early warning, a chance that something could have happened before the genocide started in April, and the decision was not to do something. So I think the significance is a refusal to act on early warning and really ignoring the possibility that something really awful could happen in Rwanda.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Emily Willard, how unusual it is that you cannot get these documents declassified from 20 years ago?
EMILY WILLARD: That’s definitely a concern, because, especially with presidential records, 12 years after the president leaves office, there should be an increased access to the information. And those 20 years expired last January. So we’re still—it is very concerning that we’re still having a hard time getting especially the behind-the-scenes—
AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about President Clinton.
EMILY WILLARD: —deliberative information. Yes, president—the presidential records from the National Security Council, where a lot of these decisions were likely made. So, it is concerning because, you know, 20 years after the fact, especially that the documents and the information is about a genocide—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Emily Willard, thanks so much for being with us, and Professor Scott Straus of University of Wisconsin.
Refusing to Call It Genocide: Documents Show Clinton Administration Ignored Mass Killings in Rwanda
APRIL 07, 2014
STORY
WATCH FULL SHOW
20 Years Later, Rwanda Commemorates Genocide the World Ignored
Declassified U.S. documents show the Clinton administration refused to label the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda as a genocide. One State Department document read: "Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'" At a press briefing in 1994, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner asked: "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?" State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley responded, "Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer." Samantha Power, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the U.S. inaction in her 2001 article, "Bystanders to Genocide." She wrote, "The United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements." We speak to Emily Willard of the National Security Archive, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Scott Straus, author of "The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We continue our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. We go first to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Emily Willard. She’s a research associate at the National Security Archive. The organization is running the Rwanda 20 Years Later project, which is part of its broader Genocide Prevention Project. Willard and her team are utilizing formerly classified documents released by the Defense Intelligence Agency to help bring accountability for the atrocity.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Emily. Start off by telling us what you have—what you feel is the most important of the documents you have released.
EMILY WILLARD: I think one of the most important documents that we’ve released is, over the years, we’ve—one of the key documents shows the U.S.'s and the international community's failure to intervene in Rwanda when the genocide was already occurring. There’s a Department of Defense memo sent to the National Security Council. It’s a one-page, three-paragraph memo, clearly saying that there’s an idea that the United States could jam the radios, the national radio program in Rwanda that were inciting the massacres. And this document clearly says that a decision was made that it would be ineffective and too expensive to jam the radios, and that it would be cheaper for the United States and more efficient to follow up after the violence had ended with aid support. So this clearly shows U.S. apprehension in getting militarily involved and, you know, going for the after-the-fact relief. However, key documents—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, the key—the key point here, for people who aren’t familiar with this, is the role of the radio in the genocide, the incitement to kill Tutsis, calling them, most famously, "cockroaches."
EMILY WILLARD: Yes, yes. And while this document is certainly key—and we’ve had this one for a while—the remaining key documents that really will tell the behind-the-scenes about how some of these key decisions were made are still classified. And they’re bogged down in the declassification process. So, unfortunately, some of the very key documents that we really need as an international community to understand how these key decisions were made are still not available to the public. And we’re in the process of working with the government to get them declassified, but, unfortunately, those key behind-the-scenes conversations are not available to the public.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to some of the clips of U.S. officials. The United States government carefully avoided using the word "genocide" to describe what was happening in Rwanda. This is a clip from the PBS Frontline documentary Ghosts of Rwanda. It begins a State Department briefing, April 28th, 1994.
REPORTER 1: —comment on that, or a view as to whether or not what is happening could be genocide?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Well, as I think you know, the use of the term "genocide" has a very precise legal meaning, although it’s not strictly a legal determination. There are—there are other factors in there, as well. When—in looking at a situation to make a determination about that, before we begin to use that term, we have to know as much as possible about the facts of the situation.
REPORTER 2: Just out of curiosity, given that so many people say that there is genocide underway, or something that strongly resembles it, why wouldn’t this convention be invoked?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think, as you know, this becomes a legal definitional thing, unfortunately, in terms of—as horrendous as all these things are, there becomes a definitional question.
AMY GOODMAN: Madeleine Albright, then-secretary of state, speaking in ’94. Seven weeks into the genocide, then-President Bill Clinton restated U.S. policy on intervening in foreign conflicts.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: The end of the superpower standoff lifted the lid from a cauldron of long-simmering hatreds. Now the entire global terrain is bloody with such conflicts, from Rwanda to Georgia. Whether we get involved in any of the world’s ethnic conflicts, in the end, must depend on the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Clinton. During a press conference in June ’94, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner questioned State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley on how she would describe the events taking place in Rwanda.
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.
ALAN ELSNER: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer.
ALAN ELSNER: Is it true that the—that you have specific guidance not use the word "genocide" in isolation, but always to preface it with this—this word, "acts of"?
CHRISTINE SHELLEY: I have guidance, which—to which I—which I try to use as best as I can. I’m not—I have—there are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the State Department spokesperson, Christine Shelley, being questioned by the Reuters correspondent, Alan Elsner. Scott Straus is also with us now, in addition to Emily Willard. Scott Straus is professor of political science and international studies at UW-Madison. He has written several books on Rwanda, including The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Professor Straus, the significance of the U.S. response at the time, not willing to call what was happening a genocide?
SCOTT STRAUS: Well, the U.S. was one of the key actors at the time. And, you know, the policy was clearly not to get involved in Rwanda. But the U.S.—and as the leading actor on the international stage at that time, the U.S.'s actions were critical. But the U.S. wasn't acting alone. I mean, Britain and Belgium at that time and within the bureaucracy of the United Nations, there was a real reluctance to get involved.
AMY GOODMAN: And France, as well, of course, leading to the fight that’s happening today with the delegation, the high-level delegation, pulling out of the genocide commemorations because of Kagame saying that the French were responsible.
SCOTT STRAUS: Yeah, the French had a much more controversial history with Rwanda, both before the genocide and even during the genocide. France was the leading ally of the regime in Rwanda, the regime that ultimately orchestrated the genocide. So the controversy is really: How much did they know? When did they know? Were they—some people accuse them of being involved in the preparations for genocide. I think that goes too far. But nonetheless, they were—they were the main ally of the regime that orchestrated genocide, and so that’s one of the reasons why their role has been so controversial in this particular history.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2001, Samantha Power, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote an article in The Atlantic magazine called "Bystanders to Genocide." In it, she wrote, quote, "the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. ... The United States in fact did virtually nothing 'to try to limit what occurred.' ... In order not to appreciate that genocide or something close to it was under way, U.S. officials had to ignore public reports and internal intelligence and debate," she wrote. At the time, she was founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, now, of course, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and she is leading the U.S. delegation at the Rwandan commemorations. Emily Willard, the significance of this and the documents that you have that are the underlying documents to the kind of statements you were hearing from President Clinton to Madeleine Albright, then the secretary of state?
EMILY WILLARD: Yes, the debate around whether or not the genocide had actually occurred was very clear right after the plane was shot down and the violence started. There was a debate going on with the Department of State. And at the end of—it wasn’t until the end of April that it was declared publicly that acts of genocide had occurred, and then not until the beginning of May that the secretary of state came out and said that a genocide had occurred. And you see in the documents, the reporting within the State Department, a very clear hesitation to not overestimate the number of people who were being killed. And actually, very interestingly, as the process of getting the documents declassified, there are examples where the United States, in the documents, says, "We’re not sure if, you know, 500,000, it is an exaggeration." And in the first release of the document that—that sentence was redacted, because even after the genocide happened, there’s still a hesitation to be clear and open about what the intelligence was and how those—that analysis of the intelligence was handled.
AMY GOODMAN: And the Dallaire fax, the significance of this, Professor Straus, if you could comment on this, the head of the U.N. peacekeepers writing to the United Nations that a genocide was about to take place?
SCOTT STRAUS: So I think that, you know, people have gone back and looked, and there have been clear warnings that something really terrible was happening, including the possibility of genocide or extermination. And the significance of the January memo that Dallaire wrote was a clear warning to United Nations headquarters in New York that there were efforts to train militia, that there was stockpiling of weapons, there was a clear warning that there was going to be significant violence against Tutsi civilians, even possibility of extermination. And Dallaire was essentially requesting some type of authorization to be aggressive in uncovering those stockpiles of weapons and so forth. And the U.N. headquarters was essentially risk-averse, said, "Don’t do it. You know, don’t get involved." And so, this was a real early warning, a chance that something could have happened before the genocide started in April, and the decision was not to do something. So I think the significance is a refusal to act on early warning and really ignoring the possibility that something really awful could happen in Rwanda.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Emily Willard, how unusual it is that you cannot get these documents declassified from 20 years ago?
EMILY WILLARD: That’s definitely a concern, because, especially with presidential records, 12 years after the president leaves office, there should be an increased access to the information. And those 20 years expired last January. So we’re still—it is very concerning that we’re still having a hard time getting especially the behind-the-scenes—
AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about President Clinton.
EMILY WILLARD: —deliberative information. Yes, president—the presidential records from the National Security Council, where a lot of these decisions were likely made. So, it is concerning because, you know, 20 years after the fact, especially that the documents and the information is about a genocide—
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Emily Willard, thanks so much for being with us, and Professor Scott Straus of University of Wisconsin.
No as a result of those who work in that party that sat on their asses collecting pay checks instead of rallying up the voters.
The US had nothing to do with Doc and Atristide's lack of leadership and abusing their powers to steal millions from Haiti.
I am sure you don't believe the US has not used it's influence and dirty tricks in Haiti.
Latino went to his office in Burlington to beg him not to send Vermont's nuclear waste and dump it in their impoverished community, and he told them to kick rocks.
It's just people aren't brainwashed and cult like about other candidates as you guys are with this dude. And Trump is a racist, sexist, idiot. That's why he gets protested.