This weekend when Haiti's rebel's had gained control of virtually the entire island country of 8 million people the only city that remained in control by Aristide's forces was the capital Port-au-Prince.
Why hadn't the rebels successfully taken the city? Because the U.S. Government hoped they would slow down or stop their advances. You might wonder how the U.S. Government were in touch with or even contributing to orchestrating the rebel's strategy. Couldn't be farther from the truth.
The only reason the rebel's halted their advance on Port-au-Prince was because one of the rebel's leaders, Guy Philippe, read about the U.S. pleas on the internet.
[…] Philippe said he was not contacted by the United States, but read about the plea on the Internet.
“We don't want to have any problem with the international community,” he said. “They have a good strategy to help Haitian people” — namely a demand for Aristide to resign.[…]
At one time insurgent rebels looking to gloss their ego tuned in to the mother of news — 24 hour news network CNN — today it seems Haitian rebels tend to me a bit more technically savvy. That is, tuning into the world via the internet versus tuning out by watching television.
To be sure, television news is still king, while the internet makes its own advances. And whether or not the U.S. had anything to do with the recent mayhem in Haiti (and I doubt that they did) I do wonder why we haven't seen more coverage of the events leading up to the chaos online. So, like Michael Feldman, I wonder where are the Haitian blogs?
