The Haitian National Police are making courageous efforts to protect the population, under extremely difficult situations. Three years of an embargo on international assistance to the police, and of a U.S. embargo on purchased police supplies (including, recently, tear gas), have left the force dangerously under equipped and underfinanced. Eight years of U.S. undermining of the police, from CIA recruitment during the force’s initial training in 1995 through inappropriate pressure to remove two police chiefs in the last year have led some members of the force to betray their oaths of loyalty. Nevertheless, the majority of Haitian police have struggled valiantly, some paying the ultimate price, to protect Haiti’s constitution without risking large civilian casualties.

Take Action to Support Haiti’s Democracy!

The U.S. has actively and tacitly supported Haiti’s opposition during their four-year standoff with Haiti’s democratically elected government. Instead of supporting Haiti’s young democracy, the U.S. government has maintained an embargo on aid to Haiti’s government while supporting the opposition forces.

American funds for democracy should not be used to destabilize democracy – yet that is exactly what is happening in Haiti today.

You can make a difference! Call or email your representatives in Congress today! You can find contact info for your members here http://www.Congress.org/congressorg/home/ or calling the Capitol Switchboard at: (202) 224-3121.

Urge your members to pressure the State Department and the Bush Administration to take a stronger stand in support of Haiti’s young democracy. Call on them to condemn those who initiate or condone violence in Haiti, including opposition forces.

Ask them to issue a statement supporting Haiti’s democracy and emphatically condemning violence and anti-constitutional means of changing Haiti’s leadership.

Ask them to support CARICOM’s (the Caribbean Community) proposal and agreements with President Aristide that includes support for elections to solve Haiti’s political crisis.

Suggest they send a short statement to the Haiti Desk at the State Department outlining their position on current events in Haiti. A sample letter is included below the background section.

**** Update on Current Events and Analysis

From the Let Haiti Live: Coalition for a Just U.S. Policy

On February 5, 2004, criminal-at-large Jean Tatoune and his violent gang, recently renamed the “Gonaives Resistance Front,” (formerly the Cannibal Army), took the coastal city of Gonaives through violent means. They burned the police station, lynched at least two and killed as many as five others. Police fled the city, and the home and businesses of the Mayor, Stephen Moise, were also burned. Members of the population were killed, and their homes looted and burned. The same group has held the Raboteau area of Gonaives for months. It declared that all supporters of the constitutional government had to leave the area or be killed. The group embarked on a campaign of terror against democracy supporters, including killings and the destruction of many houses.

During a police maneuver intended to wrest control of Gonaives from the hands of the criminal gang, opposition members and former Haitian soldiers lined the streets of the city. From hiding places along the road, they ambushed Haitian National Police officers, killing several. Horrifying images have been circulated on the internet.

The Let Haiti Live: Coalition for a Just U.S. Policy condemns without condition the acts of violence perpetrated in Gonaives during the past few days. We emphatically condemn the Gonaives Resistance Front and its bloodthirsty leader, former paramilitary member Jean Pierre, aka Jean Tatoune. We call for the immediate re-capture of this dangerous criminal.

Tatoune was convicted during the 2000 Raboteau Massacre trial and was serving a life sentence in the Gonaives prison until a prison break in August 2002. Since his liberation, Tatoune has led a gang of violent men in terrorizing the community in Gonaives. Popular organizations have repeatedly called for his re-arrest. The Haitian National Police hesitated to attempt to capture him because of the potential for large numbers of civilian casualties.

Tatoune and his allies state publicly that they are part of the movement of opposition to the elected government. Leaders of other movement components, including the opposition coalition Democratic Platform, which includes the Democratic Convergence and the Group of 184, have failed to condemn the violence perpetrated in the name of the opposition in Gonaives. In fact, two officials of the opposition political coalition, Herve Saintilus and Victor Benoit, declared that they have nothing against the actions carried out by their representatives in Gonaives.[i] These leaders regularly conduct illegal, provocative and often violent demonstrations elsewhere in Haiti that decrease the Police’s ability to respond to the Gonaives violence.

The opposition has clearly stated that it will not participate in negotiations with President Aristide, even with the assistance of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM. In talks with Caribbean leaders last week, President Aristide committed to take steps to end the political crisis in Haiti. These include:

Releasing specific prisoners who have been ordered freed.

Reforming the police force.

Disarmament of “strong arm” groups.

Coordination of internationally monitored elections.

President Aristide also pledged that he would step down from power when his term comes to a close. In accordance with the Haitian Constitution, he cannot run again.

President Aristide’s commitments have been met with escalating violence by opposition members, with Thursday’s siege and take over of Gonaives the most disturbing yet. As President Aristide makes plans to allow democracy to move forward, the opposition is making its boldest and most violent power grab yet. President Aristide’s supporters filled the streets of Port-au-Prince on February 7 in peaceful commemorations of new public parks. They expressed their support for democracy, elections, and the fulfillment of the president’s constitutional term.

During a recent interview, U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters commented on the opposition’s efforts to block democracy in Haiti: “I believe that the opposition in Haiti is trying to foment a coup d'etat. They claim that they are staging peaceful protests, but that is not what they are actually doing. It is my impression that the opposition, led by Andy Apaid, is simply involved in a power grab. They want to place a council of their choosing in charge of the government and the country, instead of accepting the will of the people and respecting Haiti's democratically elected president. And they want to make sure that the governing council represents only their interests as members of Haiti's bourgeoisie. They want their group, ‘the elite’, to totally control Haiti.”[ii]

Randall Robinson, founder of the TransAfrica Forum, expressed his analysis of the opposition in a letter to the leaders of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM: “A review of the facts will show that it is the absolute refusal of Haiti’s opposition to participate in elections over the past three years that has prolonged, complicated, and intensified the crisis in Haiti. And a crisis that began – during the Preval Administration over whether 7 senate seats should go to a run-off has spiraled, at the instigation of the United States, into a litany of never-ending conditions being placed on the Aristide government. This constant moving of the goal post was designed to (i) render the Government of Haiti ineffective, (ii) induce Haiti fatigue throughout the region, and (iii) lead to Aristide’s eventual and complete isolation.”

Insecurity in Haiti has links to U.S. Policy. In 1994 President Aristide dismantled the feared and hated Haitian Army. U.S. forces occupying Haiti ignored their U.N. mandate to disarm the soldiers. "While the U.S. forces were in Haiti [in 1994-95], responding to requests by the United Nations and Aristide to disarm thousands of paramilitary gang members, they established a gun buy-back program. The $50 per gun the U.S. was offering did not yield much. Today those unretrieved guns and weapons owned by some 7,000 Haitian army officers, many of whom were trained at the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, are being used to commit crimes throughout Haiti."[iii]

In more recent years, the United States has continued to undermine the Haitian government's attempts to create an environment of security in the country. From the beginning, the U.S. used its training programs for Haitian police to recruit spies within the force.[iv] The U.S. has also withheld funding from the Organization of American States (OAS) Special Mission. President Aristide negotiated the terms of reference necessary to bring one hundred police trainers to Haiti to help professionalize the Haitian National Police and pave the way forward for elections, yet the funding for the program does not exist.

The United States is simultaneously raising security as a pre-condition for any elections in Haiti and withholding the funding Haiti needs to create that security. Clearly, a security crisis in Haiti today is increasing in urgency as the opposition escalates from protests to violence in and beyond the city of Gonaives. We deplore the U.S. position, watching from the sidelines while blaming the Haitian Government for its inability to improve public safety. It is shameful that the U.S. has not yet issued a statement condemning the violent acts of the opposition.

The under-staffed Haitian National Police are facing their greatest challenge ever. Members of their forces have been ambushed and lynched in Gonaives, and with a grand total of 3,000 Haitian police for a country of ten million, they do not have the resources to protect all of Haiti's cities from opposition military takeovers. The Coalition recently learned that the U.S. has decided to extend its sanctions of exporting weapons to Haiti to include the sale and export of tear gas to the Haitian Police. This is a terrible mistake, which will leave Haitian National Police with drastically reduced options for dealing with armed resistance from the opposition in Gonaives, among other places. Perhaps worse, it will decrease the force’s ability to respond to low level violence in illegal demonstrations, forcing the police to choose between allowing demonstrators to attack government facilities or shooting them.

The U.S. has supported the Haitian opposition, which refuses to participate in elections and uses violent means to attempt to take power. U.S. "democracy enhancement" intervention in Haiti had negative effects on voter confidence and the accountability of politicians/political parties. Democracy enhancement is "especially pervasive in countries where Washington has determined that its democracy-promotion operations can play a critical role in shaping that nation's politics and bringing it closer in line with U.S. economic and political interests."[v] An important aspect of the USAID Democracy and Governance program has always been working with political parties. The post-coup program in 1994 required that political alternatives exist and pluralism was encouraged. Work with potential opposition parties was a fundamental part of the program.

USAID does not directly fund political parties. Funding is channeled through two of the National Endowment for Democracy's four main grantees, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI). These organizations both focus on political party building. Activities include research and polling, civic education, seminars and technical assistance. The IRI funds rightwing and conservative think tanks, research institutes, and civic organizations.[vi]

The goal of the democracy program in Haiti is clear in the activities carried out by USAID during the 1990's. Funding and training for opposition political parties, financing for rightwing think tanks to produce "research" about the political and social situation in Haiti, and thinly veiled attempts to undermine the popular support of Lavalas through euphemistic encouragement of pluralism. The Democracy Enhancement Project promoted a different kind of democracy than the one that Haitians had been fighting for. It promoted a "Narrow concept of democracy that bypasses or subverts pre-existing mass popular organizations and ignores the pressing need for structural changes, while concentrating on political parties, elections, elites, and gradualist change."[vii]

In more recent history, the U.S. has required the Haitian government to make concessions and negotiate with the opposition coalition the Democratic Convergence. This requirement has in effect placed an unjust degree of power in the hands of the opposition to determine at what point they would be willing to participate in elections. The current stance by the Opposition to demand Aristide’s resignation represents in part a calculation that a popular election would yield their intended outcome. The Convergence has joined forces with the Group of 184 to create the Democratic Platform. USAID Haiti Director David Adams explained that in 2001 USAID appropriated $1.3 million to the IRI and $1.2 million to the NDI. The IRI used the fund to work "with actors in civil society and political parties." They disbursed $2 million for 2003. When asked specifically about funding political parties, Adams explained, "The IRI is looking for young and up and coming leaders…The IRI is not supposed to fund the CD directly with money from USAID, but I have heard rumors that they have given them money."[viii]

The European Union has also funded the opposition in Haiti, providing almost 1 million in a project ending last December. For more information, and a description of the members of the opposition (which includes neo-Duvalierists, former soldiers, business owners and former Aristide supporters), visit www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org.

The United States has a role to play in the future of Haiti’s democracy. After years of encouraging the Haitian opposition with training programs and funding, and propping them up with international support, the American government is obligated to use its influence to stop the violent acts of the opposition. As Congresswoman Waters stated, “The United States should be adamant in supporting democracy in Haiti. We should say to the opposition – ‘you have the right to protest, but you do not have the right to provoke the police and try to create crises. And you most certainly do not have the right to stay out of elections and then blame Aristide. You are the ones who have prevented the elections from going forward.’ The United States should take the lead in ensuring that the world community of nations understands that it is because of the opposition that there have been no elections in Haiti. The United States is going to have to condemn what the opposition is doing. It is time for us to get tough.”[ix]

We are deeply disturbed by reports that as the Haitian people struggle to maintain their democracy, and the Haitian government participates in talks with the Caribbean Community, the United States government is working on a “contingency plan.” This plan is not a strategy for supporting democracy in Haiti, but rather a plan for dealing with a major outflow of refugees from Haiti. As Kathie Klarreich recently reported, “As Caribbean diplomats labor to broker a peace between Aristide and his opponents, the US is cynically battening the hatches against a possible refugee crisis landing on Florida’s coast… it’s shameful that US policy is geared more to keeping Haitians out than offering them the haven provided for refugees from most other countries.”[x]

Noting the dangerous turn of recent events in Haiti, the Let Haiti Live Coalition expresses its deep concern that without a meaningful commitment by the U.S. government to fully support democracy in Haiti, the Haitian people’s hard won struggle may be lost. Recognizing its role in Haiti throughout Haitian history, we call on the U.S. government to:

Support elections controlled by the Haitian people to resolve the current political crisis. As Congresswoman Maxine Waters has stated, the U.S. must use its influence to encourage the Haitian opposition to participate in elections. If they choose not to, elections must still go forward.

Make immediately available the aid necessary to strengthen/restore security and build a national social infrastructure in Haiti.[xi]

[i] Agence Haitienne de Presse, 2/2/2004.

[ii] Congresswoman Maxine Waters in an interview with Hazel Ross Robinson. The Haiti Bulletin, What You Need to Know About the Region's Youngest Democracy, February 2004.

[iii] Jean Jean-Pierre, "Haiti's Virtual Government," in The Village Voice. March 28 – April 3, 2001.

[iv] Sam Skolnik “Separating Cops, Spies” Legal Times, March 1, 1999.

[v] "The Democracy Offensive," Resource Center Bulleting No. 18, Fall 1989 in "Democracy Intervention in Haiti: The USAID Democracy Enhancement Project," Washington Office on Haiti, March 1994.

[vi] Ibid, pg. 19.

[vii] Ibid at 43.

[viii] Interview with Quixote Center Delegation, January 17, 2003.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Christian Science Monitor, 2/3/2004.

[xi] Only a government has the national reach to provide a national social infrastructure. Specifically, the Coalition calls for the release of multilateral assistance loans to the Government of Haiti, and the resumption of normal bilateral relations between the U.S. and Haitian governments.

**** Sample Letter for Members to State Department

U.S. Department of State
Haiti Desk Officer
Lawrence Connell
2201 C St. NW
Washington, DC 20520

I am writing to express my concern regarding recent events in Haiti, and to make several inquiries of fact and also of State Department policy.

I am sure you are aware of the recent violent takeover of several cities by groups calling for the resignation of President Aristide. You are also probably aware that these groups claim affiliation to the opposition (the Democratic Convergence and the Group of 184, recently joined together under the banner of the Democratic Platform), and opposition spokespeople have congratulated the armed groups for their efforts.

You are also aware that the Democratic Convergence and the Group of 184 have staged repeated demonstrations, many of which have been illegal, provocative and violent, all of which strain the police force’s ability to respond to armed attacks elsewhere.

It has come to my attention that the International Republican Institute (IRI) has consistently supported the Democratic Convergence and its predecessors. The IRI receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development. My concern is that taxpayer funds are being used either to 1) support groups that are inciting violence; 2) support groups that engage in activities designed to impair the police’s ability to respond to violence elsewhere; 3) support political groups that purchase weapons; or 4) support political groups actively seeking to destabilize a democracy. Please respond to my office on each of these counts.

I am also requesting information regarding the movement of armed commando groups into Haiti from the Dominican Republic. Please inform my office whether there is any substance to the rumors that these groups are armed by the U.S. or any covert activity supported by the U.S.

Lastly, I am requesting confirmation that it is the position of the U.S. Department of State to support the constitution of Haiti and to condemn any violent attempts by a minority to overturn the existing government.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in providing this information.

Eugenia Charles-Mathurin, Senior Advisor
10th Department Organization for
Haitian Empowerment (10th DOHE)
PO Box 2322
Washington, DC 20013-2322
telephone: 202-452-5511; Fax: 202-452-5512
E-mail: ecmathurin@10thdepartment.org
"Building on a patriotic vision of strength in unity”

Commemorate Haiti's Bicentennial!
Join us at the National March for Haitian Empowerment on March 20, 2004 in DC. For more information visit http://www.10thdepartment.org/