Canada’s participation, along with the United States and France, in organizing and supporting the 2004 coup against the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide is scarcely ever brought up in the mainstream media.
This has always struck me as irresponsible, given the extensive documentation of Canada’s involvement in the coup’s planning, and given its bloody aftermath. Utterly dismal conditions prevail to this day in Haiti, still under UN military occupation.
So when, over the weekend, I was at the Liberal convention where Michael Ignatieff was confirmed as the new leader, it seemed an opportune time to ask some former top Canadian officials about all this, given that it was the Liberals who were in power at the time.
First, I approached Bill Graham, the former Liberal foreign minister, and asked him if he had any regrets about Canada’s role in overthrowing democracy in Haiti. He responded, “I’m proud of Canada’s role.” At the time of the coup, Graham had asserted that a “constitutional transition” was taking place in Haiti.
Recalling what Graham had told me in 2005 — “[Colin] Powell called me and said Aristide requested a flight out [of Haiti]” — I asked him if he now regretted dispatching Canadian troops on the word of a member of the Bush administration.
“Not at all,” Graham said, adding that he trusted Powell against the word of Aristide himself, who, within hours of being spirited out of the country by U.S. Marines and flown to the Central African Republic, called friends in the U.S. to say he was the victim of a coup d’etat.
Following this exchange with Graham, I approached Paul Martin, who was Prime Minister when the coup took place. As I asked questions of Martin, I was aggressively bumped off by a man named Mario (according to the convention tag he was wearing).
I protested that I had the right to ask questions of Martin, and continued to attempt to do so. Again, Mario interseded aggresively, this time ripping my Flip video camera from my hand and smacking me in the face while he did so. Mario threw the camera to the ground, damaging the device (though I did manage to recover this image of Mario in action.)
After recovering the camera and its batteries, several colleagues and I followed Martin and his entourage into the Pan Pacific hotel, protesting this assault.
Since I was accredited media for the convention, I reported this incident to the Liberal Party’s media desk. I spoke to Marc Roy, a Martin-era PMO spokesperson and party insider, who took my contact information and promised to get in touch with me promptly. Roy has not been in touch.
Update: rabble.ca has confirmed that the man pictured above is Mario Cuconato, Martin’s former Director of Operations.
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