"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." (Michel Chossudovsky, The
Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 28,
2004)
Author's Preface
This article was written almost six years ago in the
last days of February 2004. It was published on February 29th,
2004, on the same day as the US sponsored coup d'Etat, which led to
the kidnapping and deportation of the country's elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The coup d'Etat had been prepared
will in advance. Following consultations behind closed doors in Ottawa in
January 2003, the US, with the
support of France and Canada took the necessary steps to carry out a Coup
d'Etat and forcefully abduct President Aristide.
Barely two weeks
following the February 2004 coup d'Etat, a puppet regime was installed by
the "international community". In April 2004, a contingent of over 8000
UN "peace-keeping" forces under Brazilian command entered Haiti.
Haiti has been under foreign military occupation for the last
six years. In this context, the January 2010 earthquake has provided
Washington with a justification to bring in an additonal 10,000
foreign forces into the country. This influx of US combat troops into
Haiti reinforces MINUSTAH's "peacekeeping" contingent bringing total
occupation forces to more than
20,000.
This article largely focusses on the
history of the 2004 US led coup d'Etat, including its preparations. It
also outlines the process of economic destabilization under the helm of
the IMF and the World Bank which played a key role in the events leading
up to the military coup.
There is continuity in both the military
and economic agenda. The same IMF-World Bank agenda is now part of
Haiti's "reconstruction".
Under the Washington consensus, the
proposed reconstruction will not contribute to mobilizing domestic
resources, empowering the Haitian people, while rehabilitating the
institutions of the State, including health education an essential public
services. Quite the opposite: the process of reconstruction is
dominated by Haiti's external creditors. An army "foreign investors"
including construction conglomerates, mining interests, security firms and
mercenary companies have already positioned themselves. The
"reconstruction" of Haiti will be financed by a mounting external
debt. Lucrative contracts will be handed out to foreign contractors.
In all likelihood the country's infrastructure will be rebuilt and
immediately privatised. The entire national economy is slated to be handed
over to foreign capital.
What is required at this particular
juncture is to:
1) support the people of Haiti in their
longstanding quest for sovereignty,
2) demand the withdrawal of
foreign troops,
3) channel support to Haitian organisations
involved in disaster relief,
3) endorse the resistance of the
Haitian people to foreign military occupation,
4) support genuine
reconstruction initiatives at the grassroots level, which bypass the
stranglehold of international creditors and foreign investors.
Michel Chossudovsky, 25 January
2010
The
Destabilization of Haiti
By Michel
Chossudovsky
Global
Research, February 29, 2004
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 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, 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 ). 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." (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 )
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, http://www.elcaribe.com.do/articulo_multimedios.aspx?id=2645&guid=AB38144D39B24C6FBA4213AC40DD3A01&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 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.