US sponsored coup d'état
The destabilization of Haiti
01/03/2004
- Opinión
This article was written 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 departure in
exile.
* * *
The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President
Aristide on February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged
military-intelligence operation.
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 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 , 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 ) 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 assembles 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
National Endowment for Democracy which works hand in glove with the
CIA. The Democratic Platform is supported by the 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 ).
G-184 leader Andy Apaid was in liaison with Secretary of State Colin
Powell in the days prior to the departure of President Aristide for
the Dominican Republic 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 ).
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 )
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 in view of 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
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 )
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 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 ) 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)
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 ).
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 $250 per annum, Haiti is the poorest country in the
Western hemisphere and among the poorest in the world. (see World
Bank, Haiti: The Challenges of Poverty Reduction, Washington,
August 1998,
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/0/8479e9126e3537f0
852567 ea000fa239/$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. The lifting of trade barriers, opened up the local
market 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 a 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 ).
In matter of 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 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 forecloses from the
outset any departure from the neoliberal agenda, prior to the
election of the new president, which since his return from exile in
1994, had been broadly compliant with IMF demands.
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 fuel
popular resentment against the Aristide government, which had
supported the implementation of the 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 ). 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 alimentation 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 had
been part of the IMF-World Bank "cheap labor" policy framework since
the 1980s, were viewed as a means to improving the standard of
living. In other words, sweatshop conditions in the assembly
industries (in a totally unregulated environment) and forced labor
conditions in Haiti's agricultural plantations are viewed by the
IMF as a key to achieving economic prosperity, because the "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 part of
the country, the hikes in fuel prices have 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, has served to boost the popularity
of the Democratic Platform, which 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 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. In all likelihood, Foley was 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. It was 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 )
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 occupies a similar position to
that of Haiti: it is crucial link in the transit (transshipment) of
narcotics from the Golden Crescent, through Iran and Turkey into
Western Europe. While supported by the CIA and NATO, the KLA had
links to the Albanian Mafia and criminal syndicates involved in the
narcotics trade.
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.
In other words, 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 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 rebuilding under US supervision the
Haitian Armed forces.
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 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 Contras, 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 )
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/ciacon
t2.htm l )
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 ths regard, the liberalization of the foreign-exchange market
imposed by the IMF has, despite the authorities pro forma
commitment to combat the drug trade, provided a convenient avenue
for the laundering of narco-dollars in the domestic banking system.
The narco-dollars alongside bona fide "remittances" from Haitians
living abroad, can 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 )
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.
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 )
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:
"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=AB
38144D 39B24C6FBA4213AC40DD3A01&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 ).
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 departure.
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 multi-billion dollar narcotics transshipment
trade through Haiti, from production sites in Colombia, Peru and
Bolivia.
The militarization 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 militarization of oil and gas
wells, as well as pipeline routes and transportation corridors. It
also protects the narcotics trade.
* * *
© Copyright MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY 2004.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of THE GLOBALIZATION OF POVERTY
AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER, 2nd Edition, 2003, details at:
http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/GofP.html
https://www.alainet.org/es/node/109494?language=es
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