(Promoted from the Diaries)
From
Empire Notes
March 1, 7:15 pm EST. This just in. Aristide has
just spoken with the Associated Press, courtesy of Jesse Jackson. An excerpt from the article:
When asked if he left Haiti on his own, Aristide quickly answered: "No. I was forced to leave.
"Agents were telling me that if I don't leave they would start shooting and killing in a matter of time," Aristide said during the brief interview via speaker phone. He spoke with a thick Haitian accent and was interrupted at times by static.
When asked who the agents were, he responded: "White American, white military.
"They came at night. ... There were too many, I couldn't count them," he added.
Aristide told reporters that he signed documents relinquishing power out of fear that violence would erupt in Haiti if he didn't comply with the demands of "American security agents."
The White House has denounced this claim as a "conspiracy theory." The White House has also recently discovered in Iraq sarin-filled uranium centrifuges being transported in mobile biological weapons labs to unmanned aerial vehicles that will be used in missions targeting the United States.
March 1, 4:00 pm EST. Reuters is now reporting the claims that Aristide was abducted. Without, of course, any reference to Democracy Now, which broke the story.
Randall Robinson of Transafrica, Rep. Charles Rangel, and Rep. Maxine Waters all say Aristide told them he was abducted. Reuters reports Robinson saying, "The president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about 20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put on a plane."
I think we can trust that in fact Aristide told them he was abducted. So it's his word against Scott McClellan's. And we know how honest the Bush administration is.
Of course, it makes little difference. He left at gunpoint. That's the key.
Two other diaries with Aristide material:
Exponential's and
Soj's.