Haiti Progres October 25, 2000

Haïti Progrès
October 25 - 31   2000

This week in Haiti

    The Autopsy of a Failed Coup
Would-Be Coup Leader Hiding in U.S. Embassy
             The Train of Events
Renegade U.S. military officers were deeply involved in the preparations of last week's failed coup d'état in Haiti, Haïti Progrès has learned from well-placed sources. Furthermore, the leader of the thwarted putschists is presently holed up in the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, according to another confidential source.
President René Préval confirmed last week that his security forces had uncovered a plot to overthrow the government planned by both former and active-duty police chiefs, civilians, and members of the now disbanded Haitian armed forces.
"There was no attempt; there were founded rumors ," Préval said before taking a flight to Caracas, Venezuela to sign a petroleum accord. "Today we can say that we are in control of the situation, and we ask everybody to remain calm."
Popular apprehension remained high last week, since the government had issued false assurances as a coup was unfolding nine years earlier. "It is true that there was an unfortunate coup in 1991," Préval said, aware of the widespread misgivings. "But I think that the situation is not the same today because we have defeated this coup in its early stages. And people should not confuse all the police with a few troublemakers. For example, the CIMO (Company for Intervention for the Maintenance of Order) and the SWAT helped us out tremendously. Thus, there should not be general suspicion about all the police." The public is still waiting for "an detailed report to the population" about the the aborted coup promised by Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.
Meanwhile, the opposition, reinforced by Lavalas dissidents, has proven its bad faith and short memory by dismissing the coup plot as a government fabrication. However, one cannot but marvel at the similarities between the two periods. In 1991, in much the same circumstances, a strategy was formulated to overturn the government of then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and then Prime Minister René Préval by a parliamentary coup d'état. However, parliamentarians of that 45^th Legislature were frustrated by massive pro-government demonstrations. Given the failure of that plan, there ensued a military coup d'état on Sept. 30, 1991. Similarly, the opposition's Space of Concertation front with thinly-veiled support from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the U.S. State Department failed to carry out an "electoral coup d'état" during elections last May 21, which went overwhelmingly to Aristide's Lavalas Family party. Could today's coup reflect the desire of some to resort to other means to take power?
There is also much circumstantial evidence that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) may have been involved. Just last year, Ms. Jan Stromsem, the director of the U.S. Justice Department's ICITAP (International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program) -- which was in charge of training the new National Police of Haiti (PNH) -- denounced and resigned in protest of the recruitment of PNH trainees by the CIA (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 16 No. 51, 3/10/99). It was also the ICITAP which chose the members of the new police force. In the same vein, The Nation magazine of Feb. 26, 1996 cited Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a leader of the Papaye Peasant Movement and the Organization of Struggling People, who at that time was the head of President-elect Préval's Transition office, as saying that the force was completely infiltrated."The CIA is present within the police," Chavannes said. "It is present in all parts. But what their plan is -- I don't have it."
Other U.S. officials have also affirmed that the CIA recruited Haitian policemen during their training at Camp Leonard Woods in Missouri. After the failure of the electoral coup d'état on Mar. 19, 2000, it appears they were activated to cause trouble in the country.

The Train of Events

According to information furnished by a confidential source, we have been able to retrace events. All began at two meetings which were held at the private residence of a U.S. Military Attaché in Haiti, a certain Major Douyon, on Oct. 8 and Oct. 11. In the course of the first meeting, there was discussion of delivering visas to certain police chiefs. At the second meeting political matters were introduced, such as the necessity for the police chiefs to take action in the face of the Lavalas demonstrators ("chimères") who were attacking them.
In retrospect, one must question the Oct. 2 confrontation on Delmas between police chief Jackie Nau and a Lavalas crowd after he disarmed a Lavalas militant Ronald Camille alias Ronald Cadavre. Was he precisely trying to provoke a confrontation? This is what one might conclude after listening to how Guy Philippe, the Cap-Haïtien police chief et assistant Northern departmental director, in his role as chief of the "Ecuadorians", led the discussion at Major Douyon's home on Oct. 11. Certains policemen said they had expected the discussion to be about the delivery of visas. Participating in the meeting were former soldiers, civilians, and former police chiefs who had been fired. Also present or at least expected, according to an unconfirmed report by Radio Kiskeya on Oct. 24, was the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Leslie Alexander.
Kiskeya also reported that a leading member of the group was Didier Seïde, a former soldier and police chief at the Palace. He was fired from the PNH for alleged involvement in drug trafficking.
Unfortunately for the would-be putschists, a sector in the U.S. Embassy alerted Haitian authorities about the subversive meetings at Douyon's home. This leak reflects the fact that in the U.S. there are two governments: the official government and the invisible one (the Pentagon and CIA), which is often referred to in Haiti as the "Laboratory." This "invisible government" is represented by politicians like Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), the president of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. One of the "laboratory"'s most well-known feats was the turning-around of the Harlan County troop carrier sent by President Bill Clinton and the UN in 1993 to carry out the professionalization of the Haitian Army. But John Kambourian, the CIA station chief in Haiti, orchestrated with his FRAPH and Macoute henchmen a snarling "show of force," where some journalists and cars were kicked, on the Port-au-Prince wharf to make the ship turn back and make Clinton lose face.
Resuming our thread, the Palace transmitted the dossier to the PNH Director General Pierre Denizé, who asked those police chiefs invited to Douyon's meetings explain themselves. The police chiefs who showed up: Guy Philippe (Cap-Haïtien), Jean Jacques Nau (Delmas); Gilbert Dragon (Croix-des-Bouquets), Millard Jean Pierre (Pétion-Ville), and Riggens André (Carrefour). They all claimed to know nothing when posed the following question: How could they all be meeting at the home of a foreign military attaché without the knowledge of the police command?
Having in the meantime assembled certain data, Prime Minister Alexis asked Denizé to meet again with the chiefs for further clarifications. Faced with their continuing denials, Denizé finally produced for them a transcript of the meetings. Then certain among them backtracked and started admitting certain facts, saying that they had come to the meetings to obtain visas.
Meanwhile, the Palace received complementary information confirming that a coup d'état was being prepared. Peasants in Fermathe had noted the movement of armed men, as many as 200 by one count, at the residence of Patrick Dormeville, the former police chief at the Airport. Radio Kiskeya reported that there were as many as 600 policemen involved in the coup makers plot.
President Préval returned from his trip to Taiwan on Oct. 16 and conducted a deeper investigation with his security personnel, who arrested the guardian at the Dormeville home, André Excellent. He declared that he had allowed the conspirators to enter the premises on the express orders of his employer. They had been armed with assault rifles such as T-65s and Galils, and carried others in suitcases. The plotters spent the whole night talking, eating and drinking (their garbage was still in evidence) before leaving the following morning at about 6 a.m..
Seeing that things were more complicated than they had thought, the authorities once again summoned the five police chiefs. Only the two from Carrefour and Pétion-Ville came, the other three went into hiding. From that moment on the gravity of the situation was clear, as the fugitives made it known that as military tacticians they were ready to defend themselves against any attempt to arrest them.
On the orders of Préval, Prime Minister Alexis ordered the arrest of any officer who did not respond when summoned. But it was too late. On the night of Oct. 17, two 4x4 Jeep Four Runners crossed the Haiti's northern border with the Dominican Republic to the town of Dajabon. The 15 men who accompanied them were arrested by the police on their return from Haiti.
Meanwhile the Oct. 23 edition of the Dominican daily Listin Diario reports that the Haitian police chiefs "crossed the border with the assistance of members of the Dominican Armed Forces in Dajabon and Monte Cristi."
Having gotten wind of the coup, Haitians in Dajabon encircled the hotel where the police chiefs were holed up, intent on lynching them. The Dominican Army intervened and evacuated them by helicopter to Santo Domingo.
The policemen implicated in this coup plot were known as the "Group of 13" or the "Ecuadorians" (see last week's issue) since they were trained as cadets in Quito, Ecuador during the 1991-1994 coup d'Etat by the putschists. After the end of the coup, they were later integrated into the PNH by ICITAP agents. In certain political circles, they were known as the "little jewels of Bob Manuel," the former security chief who was fired by Préval last year.
According to our source, the conspirators enriched themselves with impunity in drug trafficking and did as they pleased. Furthermore, Chief Millard of Pétion-Ville was under PNH surveillance for having tortured a woman. The ultimate goal was to install a government of "national salvation" composed notably of outspoken businessman and government critic Olivier Nadal, who now lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S., former CEP president Léon Manus, writer and politician Jean-Claude Fignolé, and police chief Guy Philippe. According to Radio Kiskeya, the coup would have been carried out over three days sometime in November. Haitian presidential and partial Senate elections are now scheduled for Nov. 26.
Although the coup was foiled one wonders why the government didn't proceed much more quickly with the arrest of the police chiefs once it learned of the unauthorized meetings? All the chiefs were together at the second meeting with Denizé where certain of them started to confess. Nonetheless, the group was allowed to walk away. Negligence or a "cover-up"? In any case, this lapse allowed certain of the conspirators to flee.
The Dominican president Hipolito Mejia said that seven former police chiefs are being held in Dominican security headquarters. He said his government is analyzing their requests for political asylum since, if one is to believe Mejia, no formal demand for extradition has yet come from Haitian Foreign Minister Fritz Longchamp.
These asylum requesters have declared in Santo Domingo that the rumors of a coup d'état were concocted by former soldiers and now Lavalas Family senators Dany Toussaint and Joseph Médard. With them out of the way, the fugitive chiefs say, Toussaint and Médard can get the PNH under their grip. "As parliamentarians, we have the constitutional responsibility to control the work of the Executive," responded Artibonite Senator Médard. "The police, which is an branch of the Ministry of Justice, does not escape this control. This is not control of police personnel but control of police work." Médard said that he too is waiting for the Prime Minister's official report.
Denizé has proceeded with the installation of Claude Eugène Théodat as the new police chief of Pétion-Ville, while Alexis has placed Camille Marcellus and Ralph Dominique as chiefs of the police in Croix-des-Bouquets and Carrefour respectively. Meanwhile, the residence of police chief Guy Philippe at Pèlerin 9 was looted by unknown persons.
Despite growing evidence of the coup plot, the opposition continues to call the affair a "self-coup" by the Lavalas, used as a trick to intimidate and arrest certain opposition political militants. "These guys are maneuvering to arrest the opposition," said 1991 coup supporter Reynold Georges, who was seconded by Sauveur Pierre Etienne of the OPL and Ernst Colon of Mochrenah. "That's what it is, oh yes. They want to eliminate certain troublesome elements in the police, those who are credible, who didn't want to be corrupted, who were not opposed to the police being lynched."
President Préval's, on the other hand, remarked this week that such desperate coup attempts merely reflect the ferocious struggle between the 1% privileged who own 50% of Haiti's national wealth and the 99% of the Haitian people who swear that they will no longer remain under the table.

   * 25 Octobre 2000*