The disarmament process stopped before it actually started.
Haiti’s paramilitary and ex-military forces remain heavily
armed, and ongoing impunity allows them to continue to
repress and extort an unarmed population.
Iam attending a
meeting of peasant
organizers in
L6oglne, a small
town 30 miles west
of Port-au-Prince,
when the woman in
charge of security
alerts the group of a
problem. A man who
had been asking suspicious
questions
and trying to gain
access to the courtyard
is now sitting in
a car out front,
cleaning and loading
a gun. Having survived
the 1991 mili- in June, 1995.
tary coup precisely
because they never let down their
guard, these 30-plus activists are
still highly cautious. L6ogmne was
practically taken over by the paramilitary
Front for the Advancement
and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) during
the coup, and the region is still a
bastion of armed right-wing thugs.
On this day in early February, three
days before President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide will turn over the reins of
Laurie Richardson divides her time
between Haiti and the United States, supporting
the Peasant Movement of Papay
(MPP) and the National Peasant
Movement of the Papay Congress
(MPNKP). The views expressed in this article
are those of the author.
.k voters for weapons during parliamentary ele
government to his successor Ren6
Prdval in what history books will
describe as Haiti’s first democratic
transfer of power, insecurity is more
present than democracy.
A quick debate ensues over
whether to fetch the police or to confront
the stranger directly. The peasant
organizers opt to do the latter. At
first, the man tries to hide the gun;
then, he claims to be a policeman
himself but refuses to produce identification.
As an inquisitive crowd
gathers, the owner of the car and
apparently the gun, comes out of a
neighboring house. He turns out to
be a policeman from a distant town
who shrugs off the demands that he
arrest his companion.
After the crowd lectures
him on appropriate
conduct if
Haiti’s new police
force is to gain the
support of the population,
the two drive
off.
A year and a half
into the U.S./UN
military occupation
of Haiti, the country
is a ticking time
bomb. Although the
military mission,
known here as MINtin
in Haiti UHA, was originally
scheduled to end this
February, a skittish
Ren6 Pr6val, fearing early attempts
by right-wing forces to destabilize
his government, negotiated a fourmonth
extension at the reduced
level of 1,900 soldiers and 300
police monitors. The only U.S.
troops staying on are 200 to 400
“military engineers” who may,
according to reports in the Village
Voice last November, actually be
undercover U.S. Special Forces.
“An absolute success story,” said
U.S. General John Sheehan in
February as the last U.S. soldiers,
which topped 20,000 at the height
of the occupation, pulled out.
Indeed, with casualties practically
non-existent, and ugly Somalia-
UPDATE / HAITI
type clashes with the population
kept to a minimum, the U.S.-led
operation has helped the UN
counter an image of impotence and
given Bill Clinton a foreign-policy
victory.
But this “success” is holographic.
Although it may look three-dimensional
from the perspective of international
diplomats, Haiti’s democratic
popular movement sees it as
little more than a manufactured
illusion. The passive and active
resistance of Haiti’s grassroots
activists finally succeeded in pressuring
the United States to return
ousted President Aristide on
October 15, 1994. But the ensuing
“soft invasion” scenario-coupled
with the policy of political and economic
reconciliation which
Aristide agreed to espouse-prevented
both invading U.S. soldiers
and the Haitian people from truly
reversing the balance of forces
established at the time of the coup.
The disarmament process
stopped before it actually started.
The occupation troops confiscated
only 30,000 weapons, many of
which were heavy artillery not used
against the general population and
arms of questionable operability
garnered through a controversial
“buy-back” program. Haiti’s military
and paramilitary forces remain
heavily armed, and ongoing
impunity allows them to continue
to repress and extort an unarmed
population. As the mandate of the
international troops winds down,
Haitians are wary of what will
occur when the “coco-rats”-the
latest derogatory slang here for foreigners-
finally clear out, leaving
behind a U.S.-trained police force
to maintain “law and order.” UN spokesperson Eric Falt
ended his rosy evaluation of
MINUHA by beaming that
its motto is “to be useful every
chance we get.” When asked about
its usefulness in disarming Haiti’s
thugs, Falt replied that there was “a
Civilians march with machetes and guns in
the streets of Port-au-Prince in 1995.
lot of confusion” around this issue.
“Haitians think we have wrist
watches that can literally see
through walls,” he said. “We don’t
have this sort of gadgetry here. We
depend on the population to find out
where large arms caches might be.
Despite our repeated calls, we have
had no serious information that
could help us seize these large
quantities of weapons.”
According to human rights advocates
like Daniel RoussiSre, the
Belgian priest who heads the Justice
and Peace Commission of the
Catholic Diocese of Gonaives, the
problem is not lack of information,
but rather the absence of political
will. “There would have been nothing
easier than to disarm the
macoute-military system,” said
Roussibre, “because the UN
Civilian Observers Mission was
here [during the coup]. They had all
the names of the FRAPH, the
attaches, the soldiers-and the U.S.
soldiers themselves had all the
information. Nothing would have
been easier than to cull, quietly,
those macoutes and soldiers who,
for their part, were not particularly
courageous individuals.”
UN spokesperson Falt dismisses
the fears of Haitians that the paramilitary
squads have not been vanquished.
He contends that with the
umbilical cord that connected these
elements to the ex-military now
severed, they no longer pose a
threat. “Instead of being scared,
Haitians ought to realize that
nobody will take anything away
from them anymore,” he counsels.
“It’s still what you hear among the
weak, those who have the least
money, the least say in what is
going on. It’s normal, we understand,
we sympathize, but there
needs to be more education disseminated
on the part of the government
and the media.”
In reality, the repression and
extortion are growing, with violent
acts in the capital increasing from
an average of 75 a day to over 200,
but this is now called “common
crime.” Far from counting on the
international community to disarm
Haiti’s repressive forces, many in
the popular movement blame them
for exacerbating the problem. “We
understand that everywhere the UN
goes, they leave behind a trail of
complete destabilization,” says
Frantz, a young peasant organizer
from Limonade in northern Haiti.
“For example, we can see that they
came to Haiti to protect the Haitian
military. They came here to protect
the privileged sectors of Haitian
society.”
Given such opinions, many grassroots
activists are counting the days
until the troops leave. “Once they
go, disarmament will be carried
out,” said Rosita, a peasant organizer
from the rice-growing Artibonite
Valley in the center of Haiti,
“because if I know a person has a
weapon, we’ll get together a group
of people and we’ll disarm him. As
long as we want it to be done, as
long as they give us the chance to do
it, it’ll be done. But, if the foreigners
are here, it’ll be hard for us
to do it.”
There has been much talk in both
activist and government circles of
the need for neighborhood vigilance
UPDATE / HAITI
brigades, but in practice the power
of the population has rarely been
tapped. In November, 1995,
President Aristide briefly took a
stronger stance. In an angry
response to the assassination of one
legislative deputy and the wounding
of a second from his Lavalas political
movement, Aristide ordered the
police to conduct disarmament
sweeps and called upon the population
to “give the police information,
give the police support, give them a
hand.” Barricades were erected,
homes of former soldiers and
FRAPH members were searched,
and dozens of weapons were
retrieved. In the process, several
properties were destroyed and seven
people were killed-including at
least one Gonaives resident who
Roussibre from the Peace and
Justice Commission and others
claim was killed by Nepalese soldiers
in the UN military mission.
U.S. and UN officials condemned
the “mob violence,” a spate of
alarmist articles ran in U.S. newspapers,
and Aristide called the campaign
to a halt.
where are coco-rats in the
courtyard; watch out!”
The musical group
Koudjay is belting out its smash hit,
the sun is beginning to rise on the
last day of Carnival, and I am in the
crush of the crowd, fighting the
oncoming current of revelers that
threatens to tear me away from my
companions. Periodically, a scuffle
breaks out, and weapons are brandished.
“I don’t mind if my brother’s
not in the [Presidential] chair.
We lost three years, but we’ll pull
five years out of the asses of the
coco-rats,” sings the crowd, feeling
vindicated that although Aristide
wasn’t permitted to make up his
time lost in exile, his successor
comes from the same Lavalas
movement that the U.S. government
sought to destroy. An armed
contingent bounces by, rifles pointing
skyward. It’s hard to tell just
Many Haitians
believe that
former military
and paramilitary
elements have
infiltrated the ranks
of the new
police force.
who is who here, because some of
those without uniforms have police
IDs, while others in the chintzy
“POLICE” T-shirts turn out not to
be police at all. About an hour after
I’ve left, members of the new
Haitian police force try to disarm a
member of the Palace Guard. Two
are killed and 33 wounded in the
ensuing gun battle.
Concerns regarding Haiti’s new
police grow daily. Some worry
about their ineffectiveness against
heavily armed paramilitary gangs,
while others charge that they are
actively protecting those thugs and
using excessive force against
unarmed protesters. Many fear the
5,000-plus members of the new
police will end up simply being a
stand-in for the 7,000 members of
Haiti’s former army.
In the eyes of many, Aristide’s
biggest-and, for some, his only–
achievement was the dismemberment
of the armed forces. The U.S.
government had planned to “professionalize”
a smaller version of
the army that they had created,
armed, trained, infiltrated and controlled
since their first occupation
of Haiti from 1915 to 1934.
Aristide, however, outmaneuvered
them by using a rebellion over pay
issues to dismiss practically the
entire officer corps. Yet, in Haiti’s
provinces, where disputes with
large landowners are still claiming
the lives of many peasants, there is
little sense of relief.
Many also believe that former
military and paramilitary elements
populate the ranks of the new
police force. “You will find within
the police those who will respect
the Constitution to the letter, but I
am afraid that there are already
infiltrators in the police who are
pressuring them,” said former army
major Danny Toussaint, an Aristide
loyalist who headed Haiti’s interim
police until it was phased out in
early 1996. “When the recruitment
was carried out, no one knows how
they did it.”
The “they” is ICITAP, the U.S.
Justice Department agency that is
in charge of recruiting and training
Haiti’s police, and whose track
record includes the “professionalization”
of the police in places such
as Guatemala and El Salvador.
Recent evidence of CIA infiltration
of the corps unveiled by Nation
journalist Allan Nairn, coupled
with the growing incidence of its
repressive behavior, have led
human rights advocates to call for a
case-by-case revision of all
recruits. Haitians hope that the
police force can be reformed,
because, as former major Toussaint
puts it, “if we chase out the national
police, what do we have left?” In the final analysis, what happens
to the security situation
here will be determined as much
by money as by guns, given that
Haiti’s repressive forces have
always been a tool of the local economic
elite and their international
allies.
“The Haitian army has lost the
battle, but it has not lost the war.
Likewise, FRAPH and the attaches
have lost the battle, but they have
not lost the war. They will reappear
in one manner or another,” predicts
Roussibre of the Justice and Peace
Commission. “One too often forgets
in the Haitian analysis that
there is a very, very deep link
UPDATE / HAITI
between the repressive
power and the large families
of the Haitian oligarchy-
the Mevs, the
Acras-who fomented
the coup. They are still
there, and they have all
or most of the economic
power in their hands. By
having this economic
power, they have many
other powers as well
which they can make use
of when they wish.”
On the eve of his election,
Rend Pr6val
acknowledged this rela- A
tionship between the
military and the economi
“When we came back, we
double problem,” explained
“We had the army, which w
ported by many people who
out the coup. This army
machine gun to our head, an
people had their hands in ou
et. We chose to get the gu
from our head first, and we
their hands out of our pocke
wards.” Yet as privatization a
vate-sector relations have e’
as President Pr6val’s prior
his first months in office, it
appear that hands will be
out of the pockets any time
The U.S. government and
are counting on continuing tl
cy of “reconciliation” to keep
on Haiti’s volatile political
tion. This was clearly expres
September, 1995 internal mi
the UN military mission unc
by the news agency Int
Service. “Aristide’s policy of
ciliation has encouraged th
nomic elite…to engage in dea
ing with the government,” ri
memo. “As a result, the ec
elite’s interest in stability ar
tinued profits are being met.’
Lakhdar Brahimi, UN
representative to Haiti thro
much of the occupation,
much the same argument
20% [sic] who are privilege
paramilitary attach is caught by civilians, beaten up, and handed
ver to U.S. troops two days after the U.S. invasion in 1994.
c elite. two things: that the political a transition
had a changes are inevitable, but that, on ing U.S.
Pr6val. the ideological and economic reinforce
‘as sup- fronts, they have the sympathy of forces an
carried Big Brother, capitalism,” Brahimi the current
had a told Radio Haiti. “That’s all one Those
d those can keep now. You can’t keep both ly closer
r pock- the political power and the econom- Falt calls
n away ic power. You have to share, to per- however,
’11 take haps lose the political power and submissi
et after- accept that the economic power you Duvalier
nd pri- hold will only be retained with the couni
merged some adjustments.” has been
cities in The adjustments currently a particil
doesn’t planned for Haiti by the IMF and citizenship
coming the World Bank are those of the ing a bal
soon. “structural” variety whose costs fall while, an
the UN mostly heavily upon the poor. The limited to
he poli- 1995 UN memo warned that ing the
the lid increasing pressure from the popu- future of
situa- lation for “populist economic poli- In Nan
sed in a cies” could upset “the peaceful mountain
emo of equilibrium…achieved to date.” year-old
covered Brahimi, upon leaving Haiti in “What ei
erPress February, issued his own stern know cha
recon- warning. “What happened in this I see that
ie eco- country is that you had 80% of the behind us
al-mak- population which gained their citi- misery th
ead the zenship status for the first time, but accepted.
onomic this ascension itself is a generator ing becau
Id con- of disorder,” he said. “That’s the tomorrow
problem. I prefer to tell this 80% results, I
special and their representatives in the pop- coming a
ughout ular organizations that if the liberty our hea
made you have gained is to be translated friends, it
“The into blockades and burning tires, be fight togel
d know careful! You are in the process of survive?”
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14
putting your own liberty
in danger.”
The international community
seems intent on
making the country safe
for capitalism, so that
the local elite can continue
making profits and
the transnational corporations
can take their
cut. From this perspective,
security is defined
as stability, and that
requires keeping Haiti’s
poor majority in check.
This is exactly what the
coup was designed to
do. Far from supporting
n to democracy, the ensuoccupation
has actually
I the previous balance of
d prepared the terrain for
It low-intensity conflict.
‘80%” of Haitians (actualto
95%)-the ones that
“the weak”-will not,
be so easily cowed into
on. Since toppling the
dictatorship a decade ago,
try’s popular movement
stubbornly holding out for
patory democracy where
p means more than tosslot
into a box once in a
d where freedom is not
speech but includes shappolitical
and economic
one’s society.
Goman, far up into the
s outside L6ogane, a 76-
peasant put it this way:
ncourages me is that I
nge is inevitable because
the young ones coming
are rebelling against this
at we older folks always
I got involved in organizse
even though I may die
without seeing any
result, I owe it to those who are
coming after me. We have to put
our hands together because,
friends we don’t stand up and
fight together, how are we going to survive.
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