US Sponsored Coup d’Etat: The Destabilization of Haiti
By <
http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/michel-chossudovsky> Prof Michel
Chossudovsky
Global Research, February 28, 2013
Author’s Note
This article was written nine years ago, in the last days of February 2004
in response to the barrage of disinformation in the mainstream media. It was
completed on February 29th, the day of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s
kidnapping and deportation by US Forces.
The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Aristide on
February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged
military-intelligence operation, involving the US, France and Canada. The
2004 coup had set the stage for the installation of a US puppet government
in Port au Prince, which takes orders directly from Washington.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 26, 2013
_____
(Minor editorial corrections were made to the original draft since its
publication on February 29th 2004, the title of article predates the actual
Coup D’Etat which was in the making at the time of writing)
original article published at
<
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html>
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html
US Sponsored Coup d’Etat: The Destabilization of Haiti
by Michel Chossudovsky
The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic
in early February. It constitutes a well armed, trained and equipped
paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l’avancement
et le progrès d’Haiti (FRAPH), the “plain clothes” death squadrons,
involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during
the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the
democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide
The self-proclaimed Front pour la Libération et la reconstruction nationale
(FLRN) (National Liberation and Reconstruction Front) is led by Guy
Philippe, a former member of the Haitian Armed Forces and Police Chief.
Philippe had been trained during the 1991 coup years by US Special Forces in
Ecuador, together with a dozen other Haitian Army officers. (See Juan
Gonzalez, New York Daily News, 24 February 2004).
The two other rebel commanders and associates of Guy Philippe, who led the
attacks on Gonaives and Cap Haitien are Emmanuel Constant, nicknamed “Toto”
and Jodel Chamblain, both of whom are former Tonton Macoute and leaders of
FRAPH.
In 1994, Emmanuel Constant led the FRAPH assassination squadron into the
village of Raboteau, in what was later identified as “The Raboteau
massacre”:
“One of the last of the infamous massacres happened in April 1994 in
Raboteau, a seaside slum about 100 miles north of the capital. Raboteau has
about 6,000 residents, most fishermen and salt rakers, but it has a
reputation as an opposition stronghold where political dissidents often went
to hide… On April 18 [1994], 100 soldiers and about 30 paramilitaries
arrived in Raboteau for what investigators would later call a “dress
rehearsal.” They rousted people from their homes, demanding to know where
Amiot “Cubain” Metayer, a well-known Aristide supporter, was hiding. They
beat people, inducing a pregnant woman to miscarry, and forced others to
drink from open sewers. Soldiers tortured a 65-year-old blind man until he
vomited blood. He died the next day.
The soldiers returned before dawn on April 22. They ransacked homes and shot
people in the streets, and when the residents fled for the water, other
soldiers fired at them from boats they had commandeered. Bodies washed
ashore for days; some were never found. The number of victims ranges from
two dozen to 30. Hundreds more fled the town, fearing further reprisals.”
(St Petersburg Times, Florida, 1 September 2002)
During the military government (1991-1994), FRAPH was (unofficially) under
the jurisdiction of the Armed Forces, taking orders from Commander in Chief
General Raoul Cedras. According to a 1996 UN Human Rights Commission report,
FRAPH had been supported by the CIA.
Under the military dictatorship, the narcotics trade, was protected by the
military Junta, which in turn was supported by the CIA. The 1991 coup
leaders including the FRAPH paramilitary commanders were on the CIA payroll.
(See Paul DeRienzo, <
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html>
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html , See also see Jim Lobe, IPS,
11 Oct 1996). Emmanuel Constant alias “Toto” confirmed, in this regard, in a
CBS “60 Minutes” in 1995, that the CIA paid him about $700 a month and that
he created FRAPH, while on the CIA payroll. (See Miami Herald, 1 August
2001). According to Constant, the FRAPH had been formed “with encouragement
and financial backing from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and the
CIA.” (Miami New Times, 26 February 2004)
The Civilian “Opposition”
The so-called “Democratic Convergence” (DC) is a group of some 200 political
organizations, led by former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul. The
“Democratic Convergence” (DC) together with “The Group of 184 Civil Society
Organizations” (G-184) has formed a so-called “Democratic Platform of Civil
Society Organizations and Opposition Political Parties”.
The Group of 184 (G-184), is headed by Andre (Andy) Apaid, a US citizen of
Haitian parents, born in the US. (Haiti Progres,
<
http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html>
http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html ) Andy Apaid owns Alpha
Industries, one of Haiti’s largest cheap labor export assembly lines
established during the Duvalier era. His sweatshop factories produce textile
products and assemble electronic products for a number of US firms including
Sperry/Unisys, IBM, Remington and Honeywell. Apaid is the largest industrial
employer in Haiti with a workforce of some 4000 workers. Wages paid in Andy
Apaid’s factories are as low as 68 cents a day. (Miami Times, 26 Feb 2004).
The current minimum wage is of the order of $1.50 a day:
“The U.S.-based National Labor Committee, which first revealed the Kathie
Lee Gifford sweat shop scandal, reported several years ago that Apaid’s
factories in Haiti’s free trade zone often pay below the minimum wage and
that his employees are forced to work 78-hour weeks.” (Daily News, New York,
24 Feb 2004)
Apaid was a firm supporter of the 1991 military coup. Both the Convergence
démocratique and the G-184 have links to the FLRN (former FRAPH death
squadrons) headed by Guy Philippe. The FLRN is also known to receive funding
from the Haitian business community.
In other words, there is no watertight division between the civilian
opposition, which claims to be non-violent and the FLRN paramilitary. The
FLRN is collaborating with the so-called “Democratic Platform.”
The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
In Haiti, this “civil society opposition” is bankrolled by the
<
http://www.ned.org/> National Endowment for Democracy which works hand in
glove with the CIA. The Democratic Platform is supported by the
<
http://www.iri.org/> International Republican Institute (IRI) , which is an
arm of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Senator John McCain is
Chairman of IRI’s Board of Directors. (See Laura Flynn, Pierre Labossière
and Robert Roth, Hidden from the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti,
California-based Haiti Action Committee (HAC),
<
http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng11-12.html>
http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng11-12.html ).
G-184 leader Andy Apaid was in liaison with Secretary of State Colin Powell
in the days prior to the kidnapping and deportation of President Aristide by
US forces on February 29. His umbrella organization of elite business
organizations and religious NGOs, which is also supported by the
International Republican Institute (IRI), receives sizeable amounts of money
from the European Union.( <
http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/184%20EC.htm>
http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/184%20EC.htm ).
It is worth recalling that the NED, (which overseas the IRI) although not
formally part of the CIA, performs an important intelligence function within
the arena of civilian political parties and NGOs. It was created in 1983,
when the CIA was being accused of covertly bribing politicians and setting
up phony civil society front organizations. According to Allen Weinstein,
who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan Administration:
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
(‘Washington Post’, Sept. 21, 1991).
The NED channels congressional funds to the four institutes: The
International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute
for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private
Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor
Solidarity (ACILS). These organizations are said to be “uniquely qualified
to provide technical assistance to aspiring democrats worldwide.” See IRI,
<
http://www.iri.org/history.asp>
http://www.iri.org/history.asp )
In other words, there is a division of tasks between the CIA and the NED.
While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel groups and
death squadrons, the NED and its four constituent organizations finance
“civilian” political parties and non governmental organizations with a view
to instating American “democracy” around the World.
The NED constitutes, so to speak, the CIA’s “civilian arm”. CIA-NED
interventions in different part of the World are characterized by a
consistent pattern, which is applied in numerous countries.
The NED provided funds to the “civil society” organizations in Venezuela,
which initiated an attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez. In
Venezuela it was the “Democratic Coordination”, which was the recipient of
NED support; in Haiti it is the “Democratic Convergence” and G-184.
Similarly, in former Yugoslavia, the CIA channeled support to the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) (since 1995), a paramilitary group involved in
terrorist attacks on the Yugoslav police and military. Meanwhile, the NED
through the “Center for International Private Enterprise” (CIPE) was
backing the DOS opposition coalition in Serbia and Montenegro. More
specifically, NED was financing the G-17, an opposition group of economists
responsible for formulating (in liaison with the IMF) the DOS coalition’s
“free market” reform platform in the 2000 presidential election, which led
to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.
The IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”
The IMF and the World Bank are key players in the process of economic and
political destabilization. While carried out under the auspices of an
intergovernmental body, the IMF reforms tend to support US strategic and
foreign policy objectives.
Based on the so-called “Washington consensus”, IMF austerity and
restructuring measures through their devastating impacts, often contribute
to triggering social and ethnic strife. IMF reforms have often precipitated
the downfall of elected governments. In extreme cases of economic and social
dislocation, the IMF’s bitter economic medicine has contributed to the
destabilization of entire countries, as occurred in Somalia, Rwanda and
Yugoslavia. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The globalization of Poverty and the
New World Order, Second Edition, 2003,
<
http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/GofP.html>
http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/GofP.html )
The IMF program is a consistent instrument of economic dislocation. The
IMF’s reforms contribute to reshaping and downsizing State institutions
through drastic austerity measures. The latter are implemented alongside
other forms of intervention and political interference, including CIA covert
activities in support of rebel paramilitary groups and opposition political
parties.
Moreover, so-called “Emergency Recovery” and “Post-conflict” reforms are
often introduced under IMF guidance, in the wake of a civil war, a regime
change or “a national emergency”.
In Haiti, the IMF sponsored “free market” reforms have been carried out
consistently since the Duvalier era. They have been applied in several
stages since the first election of president Aristide in 1990.
The 1991 military coup, which took place 8 months following Jean Bertrand
Aristide’s accession to the presidency, was in part intended to reverse the
Aristide government’s progressive reforms and reinstate the neoliberal
policy agenda of the Duvalier era.
A former World Bank official Mr. Marc Bazin was appointed Prime minister by
the Military Junta in June 1992. In fact, it was the US State Department
which sought his appointment.
Bazin had a track record of working for the “Washington consensus.” In
1983, he had been appointed Finance Minister under the Duvalier regime, In
fact he had been recommended to the Finance portfolio by the IMF:
“President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier had agreed to the appointment of an
IMF nominee, former World Bank official Marc Bazin, as Minister of Finance”.
(Mining Annual Review, June, 1983). Bazin, who was considered Washington’s
“favorite”, later ran against Aristide in the 1990 presidential elections.
Bazin, was called in by the Military Junta in 1992 to form a so-called
“consensus government”. It is worth noting that it was precisely during
Bazin’s term in office as Prime Minister that the political massacres and
extra judicial killings by the CIA supported FRAPH death squadrons were
unleashed, leading to the killing of more than 4000 civilians. Some 300,000
people became internal refugees, “thousands more fled across the border to
the Dominican Republic, and more than 60,000 took to the high seas”
(Statement of Dina Paul Parks, Executive Director, National Coalition for
Haitian Rights, Committee on Senate Judiciary, US Senate, Washington DC, 1
October 2002). Meanwhile, the CIA had launched a smear campaign representing
Aristide as “mentally unstable” (Boston Globe, 21 Sept 1994).
The 1994 US Military Intervention
Following three years of military rule, the US intervened in 1994, sending
in 20,000 occupation troops and “peace-keepers” to Haiti. The US military
intervention was not intended to restore democracy. Quite the contrary: it
was carried out to prevent a popular insurrection against the military Junta
and its neoliberal cohorts.
In other words, the US military occupation was implemented to ensure
political continuity.
While the members of the military Junta were sent into exile, the return to
constitutional government required compliance to IMF diktats, thereby
foreclosing the possibility of a progressive “alternative” to the neoliberal
agenda. Moreover, US troops remained in the country until 1999. The Haitian
armed forces were disbanded and the US State Department hired a mercenary
company DynCorp to provide “technical advice” in restructuring the Haitian
National Police (HNP).
“DynCorp has always functioned as a cut-out for Pentagon and CIA covert
operations.” (See Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch,
February 27, 2002, <
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=1988>
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=1988 ) Under DynCorp
advice in Haiti, former Tonton Macoute and Haitian military officers
involved in the 1991 Coup d’Etat were brought into the HNP. (See Ken
Silverstein, Privatizing War, The Nation, July 28, 1997,
<
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/silver.htm>
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/silver.htm )
In October 1994, Aristide returned from exile and reintegrated the
presidency until the end of his mandate in 1996. “Free market” reformers
were brought into his Cabinet. A new wave of deadly macro-economic policies
was adopted under a so-called Emergency Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) “that
sought to achieve rapid macroeconomic stabilization, restore public
administration, and attend to the most pressing needs.” (See IMF Approves
Three-Year ESAF Loan for Haiti, Washington, 1996,
<
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/1996/pr9653.htm>
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/1996/pr9653.htm ).
The restoration of Constitutional government had been negotiated behind
closed doors with Haiti’s external creditors. Prior to Aristide’s
reinstatement as the country’s president, the new government was obliged to
clear the country’s debt arrears with its external creditors. In fact the
new loans provided by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB), and the IMF were used to meet Haiti’s obligations with international
creditors. Fresh money was used to pay back old debt leading to a spiraling
external debt.
Broadly coinciding with the military government, Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) declined by 30 percent (1992-1994). With a per capita income of $250
per annum, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and among
the poorest in the world. (see World Bank, Haiti: The Challenges of Poverty
Reduction, Washington, August 1998,
<
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/0/8479e9126e3537f0852567e
a000fa239/$FILE/Haiti1.doc>
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/0/8479e9126e3537f0852567ea
000fa239/$FILE/Haiti1.doc ).
The World Bank estimates unemployment to be of the order of 60 percent. (A
2000 US Congressional Report estimates it to be as high as 80 percent. See
US House of Representatives, Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human
Resources Subcommittee, FDHC Transcripts, 12 April 2000).
In the wake of three years of military rule and economic decline, there was
no “Economic Emergency Recovery” as envisaged under the IMF loan agreement.
In fact quite the opposite: The IMF imposed “stabilization” under the
“Recovery” program required further budget cuts in almost non-existent
social sector programs. A civil service reform program was launched, which
consisted in reducing the size of the civil service and the firing of
“surplus” State employees. The IMF-World Bank package was in part
instrumental in the paralysis of public services, leading to the eventual
demise of the entire State system. In a country where health and educational
services were virtually nonexistent, the IMF had demanded the lay off of
“surplus” teachers and health workers with a view to meeting its target for
the budget deficit.
Washington’s foreign policy initiatives were coordinated with the
application of the IMF’s deadly economic medicine. The country had been
literally pushed to the brink of economic and social disaster.
The Fate of Haitian Agriculture
More than 75 percent of the Haitian population is engaged in agriculture,
producing both food crops for the domestic market as well a number of cash
crops for export. Already during the Duvalier era, the peasant economy had
been undermined. With the adoption of the IMF-World Bank sponsored trade
reforms, the agricultural system, which previously produced food for the
local market, had been destabilized. With the lifting of trade barriers, the
local market was opened up to the dumping of US agricultural surpluses
including rice, sugar and corn, leading to the destruction of the entire
peasant economy. Gonaives, which used to be Haiti’s rice basket region, with
extensive paddy fields had been precipitated into bankruptcy:
. “By the end of the 1990s Haiti’s local rice production had been reduced by
half and rice imports from the US accounted for over half of local rice
sales. The local farming population was devastated, and the price of rice
rose drastically “ ( See Rob Lyon, Haiti-There is no solution under
Capitalism! Socialist Appeal, 24 Feb. 2004,
<
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/9095.php>
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/9095.php ).
In matter of a few years, Haiti, a small impoverished country in the
Caribbean, had become the World’s fourth largest importer of American rice
after Japan, Mexico and Canada.
The Second Wave of IMF Reforms
The presidential elections were scheduled for November 23, 2000. The Clinton
Administration had put an embargo on development aid to Haiti in 2000.
Barely two weeks prior to the elections, the outgoing administration signed
a Letter of Intent with the IMF. Perfect timing: the agreement with the IMF
virtually foreclosed from the outset any departure from the neoliberal
agenda.
The Minister of Finance had sent the amended budget to the Parliament on
December 14th. Donor support was conditional upon its rubber stamp approval
by the Legislature. While Aristide had promised to increase the minimum
wage, embark on school construction and literacy programs, the hands of the
new government were tied. All major decisions regarding the State budget,
the management of the public sector, public investment, privatization, trade
and monetary policy had already been taken. They were part of the agreement
reached with the IMF on November 6, 2000.
In 2003, the IMF imposed the application of a so-called “flexible price
system in fuel”, which immediately triggered an inflationary spiral. The
currency was devalued. Petroleum prices increased by about 130 percent in
January-February 2003, which served to increase popular resentment against
the Aristide government, which had supported the implementation of the IMF
economic reforms.
The hike in fuel prices contributed to a 40 percent increase in consumer
prices (CPI) in 2002-2003 (See Haiti—Letter of Intent, Memorandum of
Economic and Financial Policies, and Technical Memorandum of Understanding,
Port-au-Prince, Haiti June 10, 2003,
<
http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/2003/hti/01/index.htm>
http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/2003/hti/01/index.htm ). In turn, the IMF
had demanded, despite the dramatic increase in the cost of living, a freeze
on wages as a means to “controlling inflationary pressures.” The IMF had in
fact pressured the government to lower public sector salaries (including
those paid to teachers and health workers). The IMF had also demanded the
phasing out of the statutory minimum wage of approximately 25 cents an hour.
“Labour market flexibility”, meaning wages paid below the statutory minimum
wage would, according to the IMF, contribute to attracting foreign
investors. The daily minimum wage was $3.00 in 1994, declining to about
$1.50- 1.75 (depending on the gourde-dollar exchange rate) in 2004.
In an utterly twisted logic, Haiti’s abysmally low wages, which have been
part of the IMF-World Bank “cheap labor” policy framework since the 1980s,
are viewed as a means to improving the standard of living. In other words,
sweatshop conditions in the assembly industries (in a totally unregulated
labor market) and forced labor conditions in Haiti’s agricultural
plantations are considered by the IMF as a key to achieving economic
prosperity, because they “attract foreign investment.”
The country was in the straightjacket of a spiraling external debt. In a
bitter irony, the IMF-World Bank sponsored austerity measures in the social
sectors were imposed in a country which has 1,2 medical doctors for 10,000
inhabitants and where the large majority of the population is illiterate.
State social services, which were virtually nonexistent during the Duvalier
period, have collapsed.
The result of IMF ministrations was a further collapse in purchasing power,
which had also affected middle income groups. Meanwhile, interest rates had
skyrocketed. In the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, the hikes in
fuel prices had led to a virtual paralysis of transportation and public
services including water and electricity.
While a humanitarian catastrophe is looming, the collapse of the economy
spearheaded by the IMF, had served to boost the popularity of the Democratic
Platform, which had accused Aristide of “economic mismanagement.” Needless
to say, the leaders of the Democratic Platform including Andy Apaid –who
actually owns the sweatshops– are the main protagonists of the low wage
economy.
Applying the Kosovo Model
In February 2003, Washington announced the appointment of
<
http://www.wehaitians.com/a%20new%20us%20ambassador%20to%20haiti.html>
James Foley as Ambassador to Haiti . Foley had been a State Department
spokesman under the Clinton administration during the war on Kosovo. He
previously held a position at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Foley had been
sent to Port au Prince in advance of the CIA sponsored operation. He was
transferred to Port au Prince in September 2003, from a prestige diplomatic
position in Geneva, where he was Deputy Head of Mission to the UN European
office.
It is worth recalling Ambassador Foley’s involvement in support of the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1999.
Amply documented, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was financed by drug
money and supported by the CIA. ( See Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo Freedom
Fighters Financed by Organized Crime, Covert Action Quarterly, 1999,
<
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html>
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html )
The KLA had been involved in similar targeted political assassinations and
killings of civilians, in the months leading up to the 1999 NATO invasion as
well as in its aftermath. Following the NATO led invasion and occupation of
Kosovo, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Force (KPF) under
UN auspices. Rather than being disarmed to prevent the massacres of
civilians, a terrorist organization with links to organized crime and the
Balkans drug trade, was granted a legitimate political status.
At the time of the Kosovo war, the current ambassador to Haiti James Foley
was in charge of State Department briefings, working closely with his NATO
counterpart in Brussels, Jamie Shea. Barely two months before the onslaught
of the NATO led war on 24 March 1999, James Foley had called for the
“transformation” of the KLA into a respectable political organization:
“We want to develop a good relationship with them [the KLA] as they
transform themselves into a politically-oriented organization,’ ..`[W]e
believe that we have a lot of advice and a lot of help that we can provide
to them if they become precisely the kind of political actor we would like
to see them become… “If we can help them and they want us to help them in
that effort of transformation, I think it’s nothing that anybody can argue
with..’ (quoted in the New York Times, 2 February 1999)
In the wake of the invasion “a self-proclaimed Kosovar administration was
set up composed of the KLA and the Democratic Union Movement (LBD), a
coalition of five opposition parties opposed to Rugova’s Democratic League
(LDK). In addition to the position of prime minister, the KLA controlled the
ministries of finance, public order and defense.” (Michel Chossudovsky,
NATO’s War of Aggression against Yugoslavia, 1999,
<
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO309C.html>
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO309C.html )
The US State Department’s position as conveyed in Foley’s statement was that
the KLA would “not be allowed to continue as a military force but would have
the chance to move forward in their quest for self government under a
‘different context’” meaning the inauguration of a de facto
“narco-democracy” under NATO protection. (Ibid).
With regard to the drug trade, Kosovo and Albania occupy a similar position
to that of Haiti: they constitute “a hub” in the transit (transshipment) of
narcotics from the Golden Crescent, through Iran and Turkey into Western
Europe. While supported by the CIA, Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst
(BND) and NATO, the KLA has links to the Albanian Mafia and criminal
syndicates involved in the narcotics trade.( See Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo
Freedom Fighters Financed by Organized Crime, Covert Action Quarterly, 1999,
<
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html>
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html )
Is this the model for Haiti, as formulated in 1999 by the current US
Ambassador to Haiti James Foley?
For the CIA and the State Department the FLRN and Guy Philippe are to Haiti
what the KLA and Hashim Thaci are to Kosovo.
In other words, Washington’s design is “regime change”: topple the Lavalas
administration and install a compliant US puppet regime, integrated by the
Democratic Platform and the self-proclaimed Front pour la libération et la
reconstruction nationale (FLRN), whose leaders are former FRAPH and Tonton
Macoute terrorists. The latter are slated to integrate a “national unity
government” alongside the leaders of the Democratic Convergence and The
Group of 184 Civil Society Organizations led by Andy Apaid. More
specifically, the FLRN led by Guy Philippe is slated to rebuild the Haitian
Armed forces, which were disbanded in 1995.
What is at stake is an eventual power sharing arrangement between the
various Opposition groups and the CIA supported Rebels, which have links to
the cocaine transit trade from Colombia via Haiti to Florida. The protection
of this trade has a bearing on the formation of a new “narco-government”,
which will serve US interests.
A bogus (symbolic) disarmament of the Rebels may be contemplated under
international supervision, as occurred with the KLA in Kosovo in 2000. The
“former terrorists” could then be integrated into the civilian police as
well as into the task of “rebuilding” the Haitian Armed forces under US
supervision.
What this scenario suggests, is that the Duvalier-era terrorist structures
have been restored. A program of civilian killings and political
assassinations directed against Lavalas supporter is in fact already
underway.
In other words, if Washington were really motivated by humanitarian
considerations, why then is it supporting and financing the FRAPH death
squadrons? Its objective is not to prevent the massacre of civilians.
Modeled on previous CIA led operations (e.g. Guatemala, Indonesia, El
Salvador), the FLRN death squadrons have been set loose and are involved in
targeted political assassinations of Aristide supporters.
The Narcotics Transshipment Trade
While the real economy had been driven into bankruptcy under the brunt of
the IMF reforms, the narcotics transshipment trade continues to flourish.
According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Haiti remains
“the major drug trans-shipment country for the entire Caribbean region,
funneling huge shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the United States.”
(See US House of Representatives, Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human
Resources Subcommittee, FDHC Transcripts, 12 April 2000).
It is estimated that Haiti is now responsible for 14 percent of all the
cocaine entering the United States, representing billions of dollars of
revenue for organized crime and US financial institutions, which launder
vast amounts of dirty money. The global trade in narcotics is estimated to
be of the order of 500 billion dollars.
Much of this transshipment trade goes directly to Miami, which also
constitutes a haven for the recycling of dirty money into bona fide
investments, e.g. in real estate and other related activities.
The evidence confirms that the CIA was protecting this trade during the
Duvalier era as well as during the military dictatorship (1991-1994). In
1987, Senator John Kerry as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Narcotics,
Terrorism and International Operations of the Senate Foreign Affairs
Committee was entrusted with a major investigation, which focused on the
links between the CIA and the drug trade, including the laundering of drug
money to finance armed insurgencies. “The Kerry Report” published in 1989,
while centering its attention on the financing of the Nicaraguan Contra,
also included a section on Haiti:
“Kerry had developed detailed information on drug trafficking by Haiti’s
military rulers that led to the indictment in Miami in 1988, of Lt. Col.
Jean Paul. The indictment was a major embarrassment to the Haitian military,
especially since Paul defiantly refused to surrender to U.S. authorities..
In November 1989, Col. Paul was found dead after he consumed a traditional
Haitian good will gift—a bowel of pumpkin soup…
The U.S. senate also heard testimony in 1988 that then interior minister,
Gen. Williams Regala, and his DEA liaison officer, protected and supervised
cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then Haitian military
commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers
in return for landing rights in the mid 1980’s.
It was in 1989 that yet another military coup brought Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril
to power… According to a witness before Senator John Kerry’s subcommittee,
Avril is in fact a major player in Haiti’s role as a transit point in the
cocaine trade.” ( Paul DeRienzo, Haiti’s Nightmare: The Cocaine Coup & The
CIA Connection, Spring 1994,
<
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html>
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html )
Jack Blum, who was Kerry’s Special Counsel, points to the complicity of US
officials in a 1996 statement to the US Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence on Drug Trafficking and the Contra War:
“...In Haiti … intelligence “sources” of ours in the Haitian military had
turned their facilities over to the drug cartels. Instead of putting
pressure on the rotten leadership of the military, we defended them. We held
our noses and looked the other way as they and their criminal friends in the
United States distributed cocaine in Miami, Philadelphia and New, York.“
(
<
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/ciacont2.html>
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/ciacont2.html )
Haiti not only remains at the hub of the transshipment cocaine trade, the
latter has grown markedly since the 1980s. The current crisis bears a
relationship to Haiti’s role in the drug trade. Washington wants a compliant
Haitian government which will protect the drug transshipment routes, out of
Colombia through Haiti and into Florida.
The inflow of narco-dollars –which remains the major source of the country’s
foreign exchange earnings– are used to service Haiti’s spiraling external
debt, thereby also serving the interests of the external creditors.
In this regard, the liberalization of the foreign-exchange market imposed by
the IMF has provided (despite the authorities pro forma commitment to
combating the drug trade) a convenient avenue for the laundering of
narco-dollars in the domestic banking system. The inflow of narco-dollars
alongside bona fide “remittances” from Haitians living abroad, are deposited
in the commercial banking system and exchanged into local currency. The
foreign exchange proceeds of these inflows can then be recycled towards the
Treasury where they are used to meet debt servicing obligations.
Haiti, however, reaps a very small percentage of the total foreign exchange
proceeds of this lucrative contraband. Most of the revenue resulting from
the cocaine transshipment trade accrues to criminal intermediaries in the
wholesale and retail narcotics trade, to the intelligence agencies which
protect the drug trade as well as to the financial and banking institutions
where the proceeds of this criminal activity are laundered.
The narco-dollars are also channeled into “private banking” accounts in
numerous offshore banking havens. (These havens are controlled by the large
Western banks and financial institutions). Drug money is also invested in a
number of financial instruments including hedge funds and stock market
transactions. The major Wall Street and European banks and stock brokerage
firms launder billions of dollars resulting from the trade in narcotics.
Moreover, the expansion of the dollar denominated money supply by the
Federal Reserve System , including the printing of billions of dollars of US
dollar notes for the purposes of narco-transactions constitutes profit for
the Federal Reserve and its constituent private banking institutions of
which the most important is the New York Federal Reserve Bank. See (Jeffrey
Steinberg, Dope, Inc. Is $600 Billion and Growing, Executive Intelligence
Review, 14 Dec 2001,
<
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2848dope_money.html>
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2848dope_money.html )
In other words, the Wall Street financial establishment, which plays a
behind the scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy, has a vested
interest in retaining the Haiti transshipment trade, while installing a
reliable “narco-democracy” in Port-au-Prince, which will effectively protect
the transshipment routes.
It should be noted that since the advent of the Euro as a global currency, a
significant share of the narcotics trade is now conducted in Euro rather
than US dollars. In other words, the Euro and the dollar are competing
narco-currencies.
The Latin American cocaine trade –including the transshipment trade through
Haiti– is largely conducted in US dollars. This shift out of dollar
denominated narco-transactions, which undermines the hegemony of the US
dollar as a global currency, largely pertains to the Middle East, Central
Asian and the Southern European drug routes.
Media Manipulation
In the weeks leading up to the Coup d’Etat, the media has largely focused
its attention on the pro-Aristide “armed gangs” and “thugs”, without
providing an understanding of the role of the FLRN Rebels.
Deafening silence: not a word was mentioned in official statements and UN
resolutions regarding the nature of the FLRN. This should come as no
surprise: the US Ambassador to the UN (the man who sits on the UN Security
Council) John Negroponte. played a key role in the CIA supported Honduran
death squadrons in the 1980s when he was US ambassador to Honduras. (See San
Francisco Examiner, 20 Oct 2001 <
http://www.flora.org/mai/forum/31397>
http://www.flora.org/mai/forum/31397 )
The FLRN rebels are extremely well equipped and trained forces. The Haitian
people know who they are. They are Tonton Macoute of the Duvalier era and
former FRAPH assassins.
The Western media is mute on the issue, blaming the violence on President
Aristide. When it acknowledges that the Liberation Army is composed of death
squadrons, it fails to examine the broader implications of its statements
and that these death squadrons are a creation of the CIA and the Defense
Intelligence Agency.
The New York Times has acknowledged that the “non violent” civil society
opposition is in fact collaborating with the death squadrons, “accused of
killing thousands”, but all this is described as “accidental”. No historical
understanding is provided. Who are these death squadron leaders? All we are
told is that they have established an “alliance” with the “non-violent” good
guys who belong to the “political opposition”. And it is all for a good and
worthy cause, which is to remove the elected president and “restore
democracy”:
“As Haiti’s crisis lurches toward civil war, a tangled web of alliances,
some of them accidental, has emerged. It has linked the interests of a
political opposition movement that has embraced nonviolence to a group of
insurgents that includes a former leader of death squads accused of killing
thousands, a former police chief accused of plotting a coup and a ruthless
gang once aligned with Mr. Aristide that has now turned against him. Given
their varied origins, those arrayed against Mr. Aristide are hardly unified,
though they all share an ardent wish to see him removed from power.” (New
York Times, 26 Feb 2004)
There is nothing spontaneous or “accidental” in the rebel attacks or in the
“alliance” between the leader of the death squadrons Guy Philippe and Andy
Apaid, owner of the largest industrial sweatshop in Haiti and leader of the
G-184.
The armed rebellion was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence
operation. The Armed Forces of the Dominican Republic had detected guerilla
training camps inside the Dominican Republic on the Northeast
Haitian-Dominican border. ( El ejército dominicano informó a Aristide sobre
los entrenamientos rebeldes en la frontera, El Caribe, 27 Feb. 2004,
<
http://www.elcaribe.com.do/articulo_multimedios.aspx?id=2645&guid=AB38144D3
9B24C6FBA4213AC40DD3A01&Seccion=64>
http://www.elcaribe.com.do/articulo_multimedios.aspx?id=2645&guid=AB38144D39
B24C6FBA4213AC40DD3A01&Seccion=64 )
Both the armed rebels and their civilian “non-violent” counterparts were
involved in the plot to unseat the president. G-184 leader Andre Apaid was
in touch with Colin Powell in the weeks leading up to the overthrow of
Aristide; Guy Philippe and “Toto” Emmanuel Constant have links to the CIA;
there are indications that Rebel Commander Guy Philippe and the political
leader of the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front Winter Etienne were
in liaison with US officials. (See BBC, 27 Feb 2004,
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3496690.stm>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3496690.stm ).
While the US had repeatedly stated that it will uphold Constitutional
government, the replacement of Aristide by a more compliant individual had
always been part of the Bush Administration’s agenda.
On Feb 20, US Ambassador James Foley called in a team of four military
experts from the U.S. Southern Command, based in Miami. Officially their
mandate was “to assess threats to the embassy and its personnel.” (Seattle
Times, 20 Feb 2004). US Special Forces are already in the country.
Washington had announced that three US naval vessels “have been put on
standby to go to Haiti as a precautionary measure”. The Saipan is equipped
with Vertical takeoff Harrier fighters and attack helicopters. The other two
vessels are the Oak Hill and Trenton. Some 2,200 U.S. Marines from the 24th
Marine Expeditionary Unit, at Camp Lejeune, N.C. could be deployed to Haiti
at short notice, according to Washington.
With the departure of President Aristide, Washington, however, has no
intention of disarming its proxy rebel paramilitary army, which is now
slated to play a role in the “transition”. In other words, the Bush
administration will not act to prevent the occurrence of killings and
political assassinations of Lavalas and Aristide supporters in the wake of
the president’s kidnapping and deportation.
Needless to say, the Western media has not in the least analyzed the
historical background of the Haitian crisis. The role played by the CIA has
not been mentioned. The so-called “international community”, which claims to
be committed to governance and democracy, has turned a blind eye to the
killings of civilians by a US sponsored paramilitary army. The “rebel
leaders”, who were commanders in the FRAPH death squadrons in the 1990s, are
now being upheld by the US media as bona fide opposition spokesmen.
Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the former elected president is questioned
because he is said to be responsible for “a worsening economic and social
situation.”
The worsening economic and social situation is largely attributable to the
devastating economic reforms imposed by the IMF since the 1980s. The
restoration of Constitutional government in 1994 was conditional upon the
acceptance of the IMF’s deadly economic therapy, which in turn foreclosed
the possibility of a meaningful democracy. High ranking government officials
respectively within the Andre Preval and Jean Bertrand Aristide governments
were indeed compliant with IMF diktats. Despite this compliance, Aristide
had been “blacklisted” and demonized by Washington.
The Militarization of the Caribbean Basin
Washington seeks to reinstate Haiti as a full-fledged US colony, with all
the appearances of a functioning democracy. The objective is to impose a
puppet regime in Port-au-Prince and establish a permanent US military
presence in Haiti.
The US Administration ultimately seeks to militarize the Caribbean basin.
The island of Hispaniola is a gateway to the Caribbean basin, strategically
located between Cuba to the North West and Venezuela to the South. The
militarization of the island, with the establishment of US military bases,
is not only intended to put political pressure on Cuba and Venezuela, it is
also geared towards the protection of the multibillion dollar narcotics
transshipment trade through Haiti, from production sites in Colombia, Peru
and Bolivia.
The militarisation of the Caribbean basin is, in some regards, similar to
that imposed by Washington on the Andean Region of South America under “Plan
Colombia’, renamed “The Andean Initiative”. The latter constitutes the basis
for the militarisation of oil and gas wells, as well as pipeline routes and
transportation corridors. It also protects the narcotics trade.
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2013 - 06:12:15 EST
