The real objectives of the occupation

September 21-27 1994

Ben Dupuy

translated by Greg Dunkel

When Bill Clinton gave a talk on television September 15, 1994, in order to justify the invasion of Haiti by the United States, he only had one word to say: dictator. The "dictators of Haiti" must leave, he said, because they have committed too many terrible deeds. "The dictators have launched an intimidating terror campaign with rape, tortures and mutilation. Some people have died from hunger. Children have perished. Thousands of Haitians have left the country, headed for the United States through dangerous waters." Clinton did not stop there, describing in detail the "reign of terror" which exists in Haiti, with children being killed, women being raped and priests killed.

What can be done then to end "the nightmare of such a carnage" except to send troops to force the dictators to leave, since, according to the president of the United States, "we have tried everything, persuasion and negotiation, mediation and condemnation" ? And "it is necessary to be clear, only Gen. Cédras and his accomplices are responsible for these sufferings and this terrible human tragedy. It is their actions which have isolated Haïti."

A simplistic speech for a public conditioned to interpret political reality according to a prefabricated schema, even more when it is a question of a Third World country. After Panama, where the North American intervention supposedly had as an objective to do away with Noriega, a dangerous drug trafficker, after Somalia where it was necessary to drive away the "warlords," headed by General Aidid, now it's the "troika of dictators" whom the devoted Americans want to remove from power in Haiti. Who could be against such a good deed?

Even more since Aristide himself could not be more in agreement with it. And in a symbolic fashion, he made it known directly from the White House, thanking Clinton for his "historic statement." "In understanding our suffering," he continued, addressing the North American president directly, "you nourish a grand hope, the hope for peace, the hope of reconciliation." To believe Aristide, this will occur because "the prompt and determined action by the international community through Resolution 940 will lead us rapidly toward a climate of peace with the approach of legislative elections in December."

It is the classic happy ending: once the gang of putschists is eliminated, the army will buckle down to reconstruct the country and in a climate of harmony among all the reconciled sectors will prepare itself for the passing of power to a new president in 1995. Indeed, Clinton said in his speech and Aristide was anxious to repeat: Democracy will only be truly installed after the second elections, another way of saying after the departure of Aristide himself... . Such is the idyllic vision presented to us, which in particular the Lavalas bourgeoisie maintains. Its thesis is summarized as: it's not that we really want an intervention but there is no other alternative, it is the only way to make the putschists leave. In the U.S. media -- particularly on television -- this thesis is translated with few nuances into the propaganda that the Haitian community is practically 100 per cent in accord with the North American intervention.

As a consequence, popular support is imparted to what in reality is precisely directed against the Haitian people, the true target of the United States. As we have already underlined on several occasions, this is much less an intervention than a prolonged military occupation by the United States to definitely break the popular movement.

Haitians must not think "that they can do what they want"

This is what the journal The Nation, well-known in the United States, just showed in a striking fashion in an article called "The Eagle is landing." Its author, Allan Nairn, has specialized in covering the operations of the United States in Latin America and Asia since 1980, which says he knows a great deal about all their secret actions and other maneuvers to dominate the peoples of the Third World. Nairn put forward an analysis of the plan presented by the legitimate government to its foreign lenders in Paris last August 26 as nothing more than a new version of the "American plan" (see Haïti-Progrès, September 14-20 1994).

The central idea of this article is the following: If the United States intends to occupy Haiti, it is because that appears to be the best, indeed the only, way to definitively smash the guts of the popular movement.

According to documents and extensive conversations with U.S. military and intelligence planners, no matter how Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras is removed -- through invasion, coup or deal -- the United States intends to contain Haiti's popular movement, by force if necessary. The objective, in the words of one U.S. Army Psychological Operations official, is to see to it that Haitians "don't get the idea that they can do whatever they want." (Nation, 10/3/94, Vol. 259, Issue 10)

That's it, the real reason for the occupation, what has appeared to the United States as the gravest danger and has guided their action since the development of the popular movement in 1985-86: the fact that the Haitian people are threatening to escape from their control, and, to a degree, have succeeded.

We know that, if the United States favored the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, it was to block a radicalization of the popular movement, or, in the words of Col. Steven Butler, "who helped do it," it was "an attempt to stave off 'massive internal uprisings.' " Without that the United States would have had no problem supporting Duvalier

even though, according to Butler, U.S. radar had detected that his ranch was being used to run cocaine into the United States. Only when it looked as if the populace might sweep the system aside did Washington decide that he had to go. (Nation, op. cit.)

Since then, the United States has attempted to control Haiti by putting some new structures in place because there has been a certain emptiness at that level after the fall of Baby Doc. That explains why Col. Butler says:

"In that year and a half to two years after Duvalier fell, things were in such a flux. Democracy, freedom, people were suddenly publishing -- writing in Creole for the first time -- everybody was very enthusiastic, and really thought something was going to change, and so there were a lot of strange people coming and going, and we didn't know who they were. And nobody had a handle on it, particularly in the outback, because the Tonton Macoutes had had total control in the interior and now they were gone." (Nation, op. cit.)

The Macoutes also had a handle on the network of informers and telephone taps. The army then turned toward the United States.

But Congress blocked the requested aid, and the CIA moved in, quickly filling the vacuum by creating Haiti's National Intelligence Service, or SIN, ostensibly an anti-narcotics group, which watched and attacked Haitian dissidents. (Nation, op. cit.)

That has already been denounced and we know that the SIN, recruiting some notorious military Macoutes, received between $500,000 and $1 million a year to sow terror and eliminate the opposition. We also know that people like Cédras and Michel François as well as a number of FRAPH leaders have been directly trained by the United States, as Allan Nairn underlines:

The CIA, for example, ran a course for Haitian operatives, which, according to Haitian officials, was taught by two white North Americans and included instruction in surveillance, interrogation and weaponry. The point of training is simply efficiency; what matters is the mission. Today, the CIA is beefing up its Haiti station, bringing in more operatives and recruiting new Haitian assets. (Nation, op. cit.)

We see in what fashion the United States applied themselves between 1986 and 1990 to put in place new structures permitting them at the same time to infiltrate, control and dismantle the popular movement. But in order to make this viable in the long term, they would need a strong political authority, a Bazin who would serve as a screen for the army and a performer for the United States. A plan which the election of Aristide had stymied. Now that the backbone of the popular movement had been broken after three years, it was necessary to go further and assure long-term control of the country. They knew that the occupation could not be as warmly applauded as they pretended.

One U.S. Psy Ops official who specializes in Haiti predicts that, if there is an invasion, initially people will cheer the ouster of Cedras, but that "anti-U.S. sentiment" -- indeed, popular attacks on U.S. forces -- could be expected within a four week period. This would be less likely if Aristide were to come back fast, but even then, he said, the danger of uprising would remain if popular expectations were not met soon. (Nation, op. cit.)

But these expectations can only be disappointed since the occupation has no intention of responding to them, all the while giving itself new means to block any revolt. In the eyes of the Special Operations officer, to do that, the methods are simple:

"You publicize that you're simply not going to tolerate that kind of stuff." With regard to mass demonstrations, an intelligence official said: "Simple. You don't let it happen. There is no such thing as a demonstration while you're there." (Nation, op. cit.)

Very simple indeed: you prohibit and you repress. That's all. This is the return of democracy under the aegis of the North American army. And that was indeed what was being planned with the putschists, because while the "last chance mission" occupied the front burner of the political scene, the occupation was actively being prepared.

The occupation scenarios being discussed involve elements from the very Haitian armed forces and police who are today the ostensible U.S. adversary. These scenarios also include faces familiar from earlier U.S. assaults on Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, as well as such familiar tactics as suppression of demonstrations, activation of U.S. intelligence contacts within rightist paramilitary fronts, mass detention of civilians and the tapping of political data banks. (Nation, op. cit.)

That's what awaits us: a large scale repression led jointly by the North American troops, their intelligence services and their local employees from the Haitian army and police. And, as Nairn notes, the occupation troops of the first phase are designated to withdraw in the weeks or the months following the departure of Cédras.

... a host of U.S. military, CIA and civilian advisers are slated to stay behind, participating in Haitian affairs more deeply than they have in years. ICITAP [U.S. Department of Justice's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program] for example, the U.S. agency assigned to rebuild the Haitian police, is due, according to its chief Haiti planner, to stay for three years, bringing in several hundred U.S. trainers to mold a 5,000-man Haitian force. (Nation, op. cit.)

Police designated above all to break any attempt at revolt or insurrection, as one of the Pentagon planners of the occupation said. Patrols comprised of both North American troops and Haitian police, according to him, will "probably be used to maintain order in the event that 'somebody from the hills decides to start an insurgency.' " For this control at all levels, whether a popular demonstration or a general insurrection, adequate supplies are necessary.

A U.S. contractor who works for the State Department said that the naval task force now standing off Haiti has replaced its stocks of anti-armor weaponry with crowd-control gear including shields, gas masks and clubs. He said fears were running high in Haiti about the possibility of U.S. troops confronting organized slum dwellers, an encounter that would have "obvious consequences" for the unarmed Haitians. (Nation, op. cit.)

That's what the United States came to fight: the people who live in Cité Soleil, Raboteau and other popular neighborhoods, who can only revolt against their "saviors" when they quickly become frustrated seeing what the "return to democracy" means. And shields and gas masks are evidently very useful to struggle against the "people" in collaboration with the Macoutes soldiers who have acquired a lot of experience over the past three years which they will have the pleasure of transmitting to their bosses from overseas. Besides, what could be the objective of the occupation if not to come to the aid of the Haitian army to reaffirm the power of the dominant "elite" who collaborated so well in the overthrow of Aristide.

One veteran intelligence officer said that an early priority for occupying forces should be to establish comfort for "the people who would feel protected by us: the middle class, the U.S. educated, some of the business community" -- those who live up on the hills above the privation of Port-au-Prince. (Nation, op. cit.)

Aristide charged with helping the occupiers

To put it in plain language, it is necessary to abolish everything in the Lavalas movement left over from its beginnings, which has a popular, anti-Macoute and anti-imperialist character. Only a foreign occupation will permit the authority of a ruling class tied to the United States to be installed. Such is the reasoning of the United States which only intends to reestablish President Aristide in power -- at least -- formally to better arrive at this objective. All things considered, it is Aristide himself who by giving the green light to foreign intervention will have best served the designs of the United States.

In this sense, Aristide is in no way an obstacle because, on the one hand, it is thought -- in particular by the intelligence officer already cited -- that his "old reformist economic program had now passed into history and would probably not be permitted to be revived." On the other hand, his presence on the scene is seen by some as the best way of blocking the people from revolting.

Although one senior Pentagon planner says that "the sooner we can get Aristide in there to give his message of reconciliation and law and order, the better off we'll all be," others are uncertain about whether he will play ball but note that, regardless, he won't really be in charge. The Psy Ops official, for one, says that, under occupation, much of the Haitian military/administrative infrastructure will transfer its loyalty to the new "gwoneg (`big man')," meaning "whoever is setting the rules." And "the new big man," he says, "would be the United States." (Nation, op. cit.)

Thus, President Aristide is used essentially in two ways: one as a pretext for foreign occupation;

the other as a way to block any popular resistance. The United States got their victim, the one whose mandate they practically wasted in exile, to collaborate with this tour de force. Their plan for "reconciliation" is nothing more than submission to Macoutism. Aristide lends himself to this with fervor, because reconciliation is his leitmotif, reconciliation with the assassins and torturers of the army, those who rape young women and kill children to the great scandal of Clinton. This shows up in flagrant fashion in the speech Aristide gave September 16, 1994, at the White House where he justified the amnesty granted to the putschists, which will be "part of the reconciliation and of the process of reconstruction" on this basis.

Later in his speech, addressing the army directly, he opened his arms:

Members of the military, we will create jobs for you. You will not be isolated. You are the sons of the land, the nation's citizens. Stop the violence. Do not be afraid. We say no to vengeance, we say no to retaliation. Again and again, day after day, we will continue saying no to vengeance, no to retaliation. Let us embrace peace. When? Now. Is it too late? No, the time is now. The restoration of democracy will bring peace for all, reconciliation among all, respect and justice for every single citizen.

And he repeated once again his tedious refrain, dictated by his tutors:

Stop the violence. Do not be afraid. We say, and we will be saying again and again, no to vengeance, no to retaliation. Let us embrace peace. When? Now. Is it too late? No. The time is now. (New York Times, Sept. 17, 1994)

To whom is this talk directed if not to those responsible for the thousands of assassinations, which have taken placed since September 30, 1991. without counting the disappearances, tortures, rapes and other horrors impossible to itemize. Without any equivocation, Aristide guarantees that nothing will happen to them. Provided they stop their massacres, they will be welcomed with open arms and if they can't be kept in the army, they shouldn't be afraid -- jobs will be found as well as a host of other compensations. This is besides what was explicitly presented to Haiti's lenders in the plan we discussed above. In these conditions, we understand why some people prefer the rapid return of Aristide so that, using his authority, he will help the occupation troops control the people. Even if he might not be prepared for that, he could not present a danger -- if it is true that he returns -- because he will be totally at the mercy of the occupiers who control the entire situation.

In the case of Panama, by example and according to "the official inquiry into the occupation" of this country, it was planned from the outset that the U.S. army govern de facto through the Southern Command. At the last minute, it was decided to install Guillermo Endara as president, but

his government was, as the Pentagon study put it, "merely a facade." Beyond formalities for the public, the U.S. military task force "found that it had no choice but [to] lead the Government of Panama." A U.S. general had a desk in Endara's office and was patched into the President's radio communications network. (Nation, op. cit.)

Such is the role that will be forced on President Aristide and he will be incapable of opposing it, if he would ever want to. In addition, the popular movement will be at first plunged into a certain confusion by the guarantees granted by Aristide to the occupation. This is emphasized by Major Louis Kernisan, an American of Haitian origin, who after being an attaché to the U.S. embassy in Haiti from 1989 to 1991, is now part of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was one of the key planners of the occupation of Haiti:

"Popular uprising? Under the watchful eye of 6,000 or 7,000 international observers? I doubt it. This is only the kind of shit they've been able to get away with when there is nobody watching.... They tried that before and it brought them two years of embargo and their little guy in golden exile in the States." (Nation, op. cit.)

It must be said that in Kernisan, the United States has found an individual more royalist than the king; according to him, the occupation 1915-1934 "clearly benefited the island in a number of respects." Aristide displeases the royalist in him because his government at the beginning had a popular character. In particular, he objects to the abolition of the "section chiefs" because "Without them, 'rural populations [were] left to police themselves.' " No question of allowing such a thing, not even some rise in workers' salaries, because, according to the well-known logic, which the intelligence officer cited above also supports, "You've got to take advantage

of what asset you have, and in Haiti that happens to be cheap labor."

The reign of populism is truly finished and what is being sketched out is a jolt towards an "authoritarian right" like the one in El Salvador. In Haiti, it is -- as we have already said -- FRAPH which will assume this role; FRAPH is a terrorist group which has been identified as a creation of the United States. Besides one of its leaders is particularly appreciated. According to a North American intelligence analyst, if "Jodel Chamblain is a cold-blooded assassin, a psychopathic killer," Emmanuel (Toto) Constant is, on the other hand, "a young pro-western intellectual ... no more to the right than a young Republican; in the United States, he would be considered as center right." In this case, does he have a promising political future? It is very possible, because while FRAPH was first utilized as an instrument of terror, now FRAPH is going to give itself a more alluring cover and the North American intelligence official who presents such a flattering image of Constant, thinks that the U.S. could very easily work with him. He has "even divulged that, contrary to Washington's public posture, U.S. intelligence 'encouraged' Constant to form what emerged as FRAPH." Thanks to which the popular movement was able to be severely weakened.

Some U.S. officials say that though they are prepared to rein in the popular movement, its capacity for frontal resistance has been hurt by the winnowing terror of the armed forces and the FRAPH. The Psy Ops man says that through spies and "demonstration killings," the "military has tried to atomize society much the way that Pinochet did in Chile.... they've largely destroyed civil society ... ." (Nation, op. cit.)

More than ever, only thing left to do is to finish the work. That task will be done not only by totally dismantling the popular movement but also by establishing what could be called a substitute "popular" movement, one which works hand in hand with the United States and financially depends on it.

This project has already been put into motion with the Integrated Project for the Reinforcement of Democracy in Haiti (PIRED) created by U.S. Agency for International Development June 1993 in order to fabricate a "popular" movement controlled by the United States. It's the same for the Human Rights Fund -- which we considered in an earlier article -- which specializes in the human rights sector.

So there is no need to be astonished that in the past few months some groups pretending to be "popular" have popped up. For example, the PLANOP, Platform of Popular Organizations, has as its leader is Jean Nazaire Tide, formerly in "Wind From the Storm," who played a major role in the destabilization of Aristide. PLANOP appears on the list of those groups to be financed in the framework of PIRED.

This puts a strong emphasis on "the importance of an 'organized civil society' " through socio-professional groups, unions, diverse associations, that being considered as "the key for any program for 'the control of the populace.' " For this control, the United States already has at its disposal a number of intelligence sources: the USAID possesses some of them "from its programs for financing and guiding Haitian popular groups"; the Immigration and Naturalization Service has computerized files on 58,000 Haitians who have requested political asylum. Finally, the intelligence branch of the U.S. army equally has some "via the S-2 section of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, which has been assigned to monitor the refugees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp."

It has been confirmed that these refugees are closely watched by spies and Macoutes in the service of the United States.

According to a report by Capt. James Vick of the 96th, who also served in Panama and in Desert Storm, the unit develops "networks of informants" among the Haitian detainees and works with Marine Corps Counterintelligence in "identifying ringleaders of unrest and in weeding out troublemakers." According to Captain Vick, the Creole-speaking interpreters at the camps submit to daily debriefings which "yield ... an information harvest" on possible "destabilizing influences." (Nation, op. cit.)

A "close cooperation" between the U.S. army and the Haitian military

We say once again: everything has been used to assure the control and planned dismantlement of the popular movement. There have been: physical eliminations by the FRAPH under the orders of the United States; co-optation and recovery which are actively pursued, going hand in hand with infiltration and espionage, because it is certain that these "popular" groups born in the wake of the coup d'etat are manipulated by the CIA. Finally, those who tried to escape the repression, either by fleeing by boat or attempting to make an asylum request in Haiti, just wound up in their great majority in a U.S. file. Now, according to a memorandum by the North American ambassador, they are going to encourage and finance "responsible elements within the popular movement" as well as "moderate Duvalierist factions." All this is aimed at destroying what remains of combativity inside the country, the ultimate target of the occupation.

Major Kernisan says it as well with compelling logic:

Who are we going to go back to save? You're going to end up dealing with the same folks as before, the five families that run the country, the military and the bourgeoisie. They're the same folks that are supposed to be the bad guys now, but the bottom line is you know that you're going to always end up dealing with them because they speak your language, they understand your system, they've been educated in your country. It's not going to be the slum guy from Cité Soleil. The best thing he can hope for is probably 'Oh, I'll help you offload your cargo truck.' Because that's all he has the capacity to do. It'll be the same elites, the bourgeoisie and the five families that run the country. (Nation, op. cit.)

Is it for this that the popular movement has struggled so hard since 1986? Is it for this that the Haitian people elected Father Aristide? Is it for this they have suffered so much for the past three years? What was presented as its deliverance was in fact the last knot to seal its definitive submission. How then can one dare to say that despite all it is the least bad solution and it will at least let the Haitian people be delivered from their principal oppressors?

What do a Cédras, a Biamby or a Michel François represent, when others who are exactly the same take up the baton, but his time directly under the supervision of the North American military having already proved themselves in Panama or Iraq? This collaboration has just been noted in black-and-white because in ex-president Jimmy Carter's infamous accord with the putschists it says that "to put this accord into effect, the police and Haitian military will work closely with the Military Mission of the United States." And further on, it makes reference to the coordination of activities of this Mission with "the Haitian military's high command," the same putschists whose so-called departure Aristide had demanded.

So in short, this occupation, so desired by the official sector of Lavalas and quasi-openly demanded by Aristide, is turning against him because it is with the putschists that the occupiers officially collaborate. And it is there where we see also how criminal -- and we weigh our words -- it was to let the community in the 10th Department (Haitians living outside of Haiti) and the Haitian people living inside Haiti believe that the occupation by the United States would permit the departure of the putschists and the return of President Aristide. It is in vain that the latter has debased himself until he turned into an Endara, the putschists are harvesting the fruits and the people are going to be the principal victims. It is also the logical conclusion of the coup d'etat, in which, as Allan Nairn says, the American eagle has just landed on its prey and is trying to annihilate all the gains won by the Haitian people through hard struggle of these last years.

Haïti-Progrès, September 21-27 1994

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