U.S. Impeding Haiti’s Pursuit of Justice

On Oct. 3, 1994, U.S. soldiers, wearing helmets and flak jackets, battered down the door of the Port-au-Prince headquarters of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), the Haitian military government’s principal paramilitary arm. A few thugs inside, along with several dozen lounging in the Normandie Bar next door, were handcuffed and, to the amazement of the cheering crowd who had gathered in the street, led at rifle point to the back of an army truck.

In view of rumors of the huge cache of weapons stored there, the number recovered was a disappointment. Among other items seized, however, were more than 60,000 pages of documents that, together with an estimated 100,000 pages taken from the headquarters of the Haitian Army (FADH) the previous month, were shipped to Washington. It is doubtful if anyone could have known the “can of worms” that was opened in so doing.

FRAPH forces had been largely responsible for the murder and assassination of from 3,000 to 6,000 civilians during the period from 1991 to 1994, which followed the coup ousting the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When the existence of the FRAPH/FADH material became known in 1995, Aristide, who owed his reinstatement as president to the intervention of U.S. troops the previous year, requested its return. Among the reasons given was that the documents would greatly facilitate the discovery of storehouses of weapons hidden by FRAPH members and provide valuable evidence in the prosecution of individuals guilty of human rights abuses.

This, on the face of it, was a perfectly straightforward request. The American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service announced that “under international law as interpreted by the U.S. government,” the documents “belonged all along to the Haitian state, and their retention by the U.S. government violates Haiti’s ownership right.” But two years later, the United States has yet to release the material, which is stored in boxes in the basement of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. This has strained relations between the two countries and severely undermined Haiti’s attempts to bring the perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice.

Aristide angrily protested the U.S. refusal to turn over the documents. U.S. recalcitrance no doubt fueled his suspicions that Washington had no real interest in disarming paramilitary organizations or bringing them to justice, and wished only to prevent embarrassing disclosures about the role of U.S. intelligence in FRAPH operations.

Was this another example of the distrust that U.S. officials said made Aristide such a difficult negotiating partner? Unfortunately, the available evidence suggests otherwise.

Throughout the State Department’s fruitless negotiations with the Haitian Army over a return of civilian government, Washington repeatedly condemned the political terror and anti-democratic cast of the military regime. U.S. policy, however, was shaped, in large part, by the fear that should Aristide return home, Haiti would be handed over to a monolithic, Sandinista-style organization. The conclusion is unavoidable that a determination was made that, as a matter of policy, FRAPH, whose pistol-toting hoodlums had prevented the USS Harlan County from landing in Port-au-Prince in October 1993, would provide a useful counterweight to Aristide partisans.

What appeared neat on paper, however, proved in operation to be messy. To no one’s surprise, FRAPH chose murder, rape, extortion torture and arson to implement this policy. Among the victims were Antoine Izmery, a prominent Aristide supporter, and Guy Malary, the Haitian government’s justice minister.

Nor was the violence directed against individuals alone. On Dec. 27, 1993, Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince stronghold of pro-Aristide sentiment, was set on fire, leaving more than 1,000 families homeless. The following April, soldiers and FRAPH members attacked the neighborhood of Raboteau in Gonaives, killing 15 to 25 people and destroying 60 houses.

This policy of intimidation was, by and large, a success. Aside from murdering opposition figures, the leadership of peasant groups, trade unions, grass-roots and neighborhood organizations was decimated. More significant, the FRAPH campaign created a climate of terror, with hundreds of thousands going into hiding or fleeing the country.

The terror was directed, in large part, by FRAPH founder Emanuel “Toto” Constant who, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher conceded, was a CIA-paid informant during most of this period. Nor did Constant’s relationship with the spy agency end with the return of Aristide’s constitutional government. “Are the American Embassy and FRAPH strolling hand-in-hand?” queried a headline in Port-au-Prince daily Le Nouvelliste. It certainly seemed that way.

Shortly after a rally at the U.S. Embassy, at which Constant, struggling to be heard over cries of “murderer,” unsuccessfully attempted to transform himself into a viable political candidate, and FRAPH into a legitimate opposition party, Constant disappeared. In January, U.S. officials ridiculed reports on Haitian Creole radio stations that Constant had been seen walking around Washington. In fact, the reports were true. On Christmas Eve, Constant was admitted to the United States on a tourist visa, a circumstance for which no credible explanation has ever been given.

When taken into custody, Constant announced he was suing the United States government for $50 million and that he “was a paid agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, which knew of his activities and did not discourage them.” While in jail, Constant called the producers of “60 Minutes,” claiming that he had founded FRAPH at the urging of defense intelligence and had had regular meetings with the CIA station chief in Haiti, John Kambourian. Constant’s increasing volubility proved to be all the incentive the State Department, as well as other agencies Constant implicated, needed to settle. Among the conditions of Constant’s parole was his silence about his relations with the CIA. He has since settled in Cambria Heights, in Queens, N.Y.

The approaching trial of the perpetrators of the Raboteau massacre infuses the question of the confiscated documents with a special urgency. The crucial information they contain cannot be obtained any other way. The Malary prosecution resulted in an acquittal, the result of incompetence, intimidation of witnesses and jury tampering. A similar outcome for the Raboteau trial is not unthinkable. So far, the embassy’s proposals for the documents’ return has been hedged with unacceptable conditions.

Several weeks after the 1994 invasion that ousted Haiti’s military regime, Necker Dessables, director of a Haitian human rights group, was asked if he expected the United States to move against human rights abusers. “I don’t think the American government has the political will to arrest those who are really responsible,” he said. Three years later, the return of the FRAPH/FADH documents remains a necessary first step toward demonstrating a commitment to justice in Haiti.