This article was written 15 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.
And today, a US Coup is on the drawing board of
the White House. Canada as well as France are once again complicit in
supporting the over-through of the duly elected president of Venezuela.
It’s all for a good cause: install “American
Democracy”, “Alleviate poverty”. An the self-proclaimed “international
community” applauds.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 28, 2019
The below article was subsequently published as a Chapter in Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled The Globalization of War
(Minor editorial
corrections were made to the original draft since its publication on
February 29th 2004, the title of the 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
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 , 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 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 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 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 ).
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 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 )
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 )
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 $250 per
annum, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and among
the poorest in the world.
(see World Bank, Haiti: The Challenges of Poverty Reduction, Washington, August 1998, http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/0/8479e9126e3537f0852567ea000fa239/$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,
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 ).
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 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 )
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 )
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 )
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 )
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.“
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 )
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 )
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,
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 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.
This article was subsequently publish in Michel Chossudovsky’s Book entitled The Globalization of War.
See bekow
The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity
Michel Chossudovsky
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.- ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0
- Year: 2015
- Pages: 240 Pages
Special Price: $15.00
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The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2019
