Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Drugs, coups and FRAPH

It is becoming increasingly clear, even to the patriotically 
myopic US media, that the recent coup against President Aristide 
of Haiti was made in the USA.

But there can't be too many people who can, like Aristide, say 
that they have twice been unlawfully ousted from their 
democratically elected position by a US-engineered coup.

The first time the Yanks showed their dedication to democracy by 
getting the tiny Caribbean island's duly elected President 
forcibly removed from office was in 1991. Aristide had only been 
in office a few months, after being elected by a landslide in the 
country's first free elections.

The US had earlier acquiesced in the departure of its tame 
dictator on the island, "Baby Doc" Duvalier, to go off to France 
to live on his looted millions stored in French and Swiss banks. 
A rising tide of opposition in Haiti and elsewhere to the 
Duvalier dictatorship had made this move inevitable.

Showing an arrogant contempt for the aspirations of the Haitian 
people (but a fine regard for the aspirations of the ruling 
elite), the US backed — of all things — a former World Bank 
official, Marc Bazin for President. Just who exactly did they 
think would vote for him?

After all, "Haiti is the poorest country in the [Western] 
hemisphere. About 80 percent of the country's population lives in 
poverty", writes Justin Felux in Dissident Voice.

"What little wealth Haiti has is highly concentrated among the 
country's ruling elite. The richest one percent of the population 
owns nearly half the nation's wealth.

"Most of the ruling class consists of light-skinned 'mulattos' 
who share partial ancestry with the [former] French colonisers.

"These ruling elites, many of whom are multimillionaires, have 
always been friendly to the major world powers and the various 
Haitian despots, including the regimes of 'Papa' and 'Baby' Doc 
Duvalier.

"It is easy to understand why these people harbour a pathological 
hatred for Aristide, a former priest who preached liberation 
theology and whose strongest supporters inhabit the slums of 
Port-au-Prince", Justin Felux said.

Also to help Bazin's chances, the CIA ran a terror campaign 
against supporters of Aristide, using a terrorist outfit known as 
FRAPH (Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress) which they 
funded and whose leader, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, was 
subsequently shown to be an actual CIA "asset".

The US Government channelled money to the opposition using the 
same agencies that they used this time, those outstanding 
democratic institutions the National Endowment for Democracy 
(NED) and the Agency for International Development (AID).

In the event, however, Bazin received only 14 percent of the vote 
(to 67.5 percent for Aristide).

The Haiti elite, like their equivalents elsewhere, will do 
anything for a large chunk of money or to protect their access to 
same. And Aristide in office tried to curb the powers of the 
Duvalier-era military leadership and the Duvaliers' former death 
squad goons.

Clearly he had to go, before he interfered with the lucrative 
drug trade (transhipment and money laundering), the country's 
main industry.

Significantly, as soon as Aristide had been sent into exile, the 
drug trade boomed better than ever, which no doubt distressed the 
US government terribly.

A 1993 article by Dennis Bernstein and Howard Levine, tellingly 
titled The CIA's Haitian Connection, in the San Francisco Bay 
Guardian, quoted an internal memo of the US Drug Enforcement 
Agency (DEA) from earlier that year entitled Drug Trafficking in 
Haiti.

"The wholesale value of Haiti's drug industry on the US market is 
now [in 1993] equal to US$1 billion a year, which equals the 
entire revenue of Haiti's population of six million", said the 
memo.

"Haiti has become the second most important trans-shipment point, 
after the Bahamas, for cocaine shipments from Colombia to the 
US." The DEA's document also states that "Haiti is believed to be 
a main centre for laundering drug money".

DEA agents constantly run foul of CIA agents, the one lot trying 
(however ineffectively) to uncover and shut down the drug trade, 
the other deeming it probably their most valuable and important 
tool. Not to mention most profitable.

During the three years of Aristide's exile, while Haiti was under 
a military dictatorship (with which the US maintained good 
relations, needless to say), FRAPH carried out a murderous 
campaign of terror against supporters of Aristide's Lavalas 
movement.

Between three and five thousand people were slaughtered in this 
period. Despite this, FRAPH leader Constant was later able to 
settle in the USA, without fear of charges relating to his 
murderous campaign of terror.

Today, FRAPH is once again one of the main supporters of the 
recent coup and its goons are again dealing with "hard line" 
Aristide supporters and trade unionists.

And no doubt the CIA still regards the leaders of FRAPH as among 
its best "assets" in Haiti. Especially if they are able to keep 
the all-important drug trade going strong.

After all, where would the CIA be without it, eh?