Aristide was forcfully removed by U.S. officials
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Sounds like a perfect place to find a cooperative regime and no one with questions or cameras. I hope the links work because they are the main point of this post.
If the long links below do not work, try clicking on the Great Lakes Region of the "reliefweb" site - this is by no means an alternative media site, as lots of USAID stuff is there, etc. Even so, it is worth browsing the stuff on CAR.
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf
A quick search on the Central African Republic's leader, Francois Bozize, shows that he led a coup d'Etat in CAR less than a year ago and has been cited for human rights violations over a long period of time. For example, see http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/d2bc...
A quick search on 'independent media' under Bozize regime turned up this piece, describing a complete intolerance of independent journalism http://www.afrol.com/News2003/car010_second_editor.htm
According to some of the material, CAR has been trying to negotiate some World Bank loans and has been seeking international financial support -- my guess is they would be happy to get a big U.S. Govt IOU. Oh, and they have 'democratic elections' coming up in a few months, first for president and soon after for legislature.
It's also worth noting that the official CAR press describes Aristide's reason for being there in words that the Pentagon and CIA must love (for example, the population was opposed to Aristide, etc).
I hope that people all over are putting these pieces together and planning to storm the federal buildings in the morning. Or something.
