Peace and democracy
AMY GOODMAN: I am Amy Goodman from the radio/TV program Democracy Now! around the United States. We would like to know why you left Haiti.
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Thank you. First of all, I didn't leave Haiti because I wanted to leave Haiti. They forced me to leave Haiti. It was a kidnapping, which they call coup d'etat or [inaudible] ...forced resignation for me. It wasn't a resignation. It was a kidnapping and under the cover of coup d'etat.
AMY GOODMAN: It was a kidnapping under the cover of coup d'etat?
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Who forced you out of the country?
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE:I saw U.S. officials with Ambassador Foley.
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AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think that the United States government does not want you to be the president of Haiti?
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: Maybe, if you could just one single example, it can tell the world a lot. I know I have already told you that, but I will go through it again. In 200 years of independence, making Haiti the first black independent country of the world, we still have 1.5 Haitian doctors for each 11,000 Haitians. Then we have a university who the faculty of medicine had 237 students. [inaudible], they are now in that faculty of medicine, they closed it. And the students are out, and this is not what they decided to do. If, have a government or a President willing to invest in health care, apparently they don't want that. If you have a president or government willing to invest in education, maybe they don't want that. I will continue to believe that we must invest in human beings. We must invest in education and health care. This is what will bring peace. Because peace is not an empty word. It has to be full. Investing in education and health care, bring the real peace to the country, and what they call peace is not the real peace. It is violence. It is kidnapping. What we call peace through education is telling the world that we are right.
AMY GOODMAN: President Aristide in your news conference, did you say that your country is now in the midst of an unacceptable occupation?
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE: It's an occupation, and the last example I just gave says it is an occupation. How you can imagine that you come to me, you want to be in peace, and you close my university and you send out 247 students of medicine in the country where you don't have hospitals and you don't have enough doctors. God, this is an occupation. When you protect killers, when you protect drug dealers like Guy Philippe, like Chamblain, when you protect the citizens of the United States in violating the law of the United States, Mr. Andy Apaid is a citizen of the United States, violating the Neutral Act, the way with this act will destroying our Democracy, and once we do that, then this is an occupation.
Democracy Now! Mar.08.04
