1991 coup echoes in Haiti 2004

From Prof Jeffrey Sachs.

Sir, It is Paul Sletten (Letters, March 5) who beggars belief. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a democratically elected president, has been carried off in the middle of the night, according to him against his will, by the US government. The US government has acknowledged telling him his only choice was to submit a letter of resignation and to board a US-chartered aircraft or face the imminent death of himself, his family and his followers at the hands of a "rebel" mob led by known murderers. The US told him it would do nothing to protect him from that mob.

Remarkably, these "rebels" were reputedly carrying modern US arms that had been carried by the US military into the Dominican Republic last year. Based on the evidence, US officials were very probably in contact with this group before Mr Aristide's US-co-ordinated departure.

To fill in the picture further, the so-called political opposition was lavishly funded by the International Republican Institute and this US-funded and unelected opposition vetoed the compromise plan of the democratically elected leaders of the Caribbean, a plan that Mr Aristide had accepted. To trained observers, these events have the hallmarks of a US-led operation against Mr Aristide, similar to the 1991 coup against him during the administration of George H.W. Bush, in which US government fingerprints abounded (including thugs who subsequently acknowledged being on the CIA payroll).

Not surprisingly, the governments of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and South Africa have called for an urgent international investigation of this violent overthrow of a constitutional government. Contrary to Mr Sletten's assertion, it is hardly "now the responsibility of the former colonial powers" to lead a transition. A few days into a coup that the US could easily have stopped, and indeed may in fact have bankrolled and arranged, it is time for the truth, not for crude power politics of former colonial powers, especially powers that act as if they are current colonial powers.

Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, US