[Fresh Ink] rabble gets roughed up at Liberal convention

[Richard Menec]

<http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/rabble-staff/2009/05/rabble-gets-roughed-liberal-convention>

rabble gets roughed up at Liberal convention

By Derrick O'Keefe | May 4, 2009

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.