Thursday, February 05, 2009
Haiti bill calling for investigation of U.S. role in 2004 Coup d'État
Haiti Action.net - Rep. Barbara Lee and ten other members of Congress re-introduced a bill calling for an investigation of the Bush Administration's role in the 2004 Coup d'État of Haiti. The original bill, known as the TRUTH Act, has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at every session since Lee first made the case for a congressional investigation in March of 2004:
"We do not teach people to overthrow our US government, and the Bush Administration must not participate in the overthrow of other democratically-elected governments. The United States must stand firm in its support of democracy and not allow a nascent democracy like Haiti to fall victim to the Bush Administration's apparent policy of regime change."
At a heated Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere hearing in March 2004, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and other Democrats questioned a panel of Bush Administration officials about their role in the coup d'État carried out against the democratically-elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Lee summed up her disgust with the Bush Administration's actions by accusing then Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and the Bush Administration of "aiding and abetting" the overthrow of the Aristide Government. "Regime change takes a variety of forms, and this looks like a blatant form of regime change to me," Lee told Noriega.
With the political shift in Washington this year the bill H.R. 331 is expected to make the congressional calendar for review. The bill's current co-sponsors include:
Rep Brown, Corrine [FL-3]
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2]
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15]
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30]
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10]
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC]
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10]
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15]
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9]
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35]
Full text of bill below
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
