“The
situation cannot afford Washington to sit on sidelines.
They elected him and they need [sic] pressure him. He
can't go unchecked,” Laura Graham, then the Chief
Operating Officer of the Clinton Foundation,
wrote to
Bill Clinton in early 2012.
Graham was
referring to the increasingly erratic, and potentially
dangerous, behavior of Haitian president Michel
Martelly. When she said “They elected him,” she was
referring to the U.S. government, which intervened
through the OAS to change Haiti's first round election
results, putting Martelly into the second round. The
e-mail –
one of many Graham
sent to Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff on Feb. 26,
2012 –
was sent eventually
to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide,
Cheryl Mills. The note is perhaps the clearest evidence
to date that key officials, even within the Clinton
camp, viewed the U.S. intervention in the 2010 Haitian
election as decisive.
The 2010 Haitian
election was a mess. Held less than a year after a
devastating earthquake, millions of people were
displaced or otherwise disenfranchised and
then-president René Préval was accused of fraud on
behalf of his preferred candidate, Jude Célestin. A
majority of candidates held an afternoon press
conference on election day denouncing the process and
calling for new elections. But Washington and its
allies, who had funded the election, pushed forward,
telling the press that everything was okay. Mirlande
Manigat, a constitutional law professor and former first
lady, and Célestin came in first and second
respectively, according to preliminary results, putting
them into a scheduled run-off. Martelly was in third, a
few thousand votes behind.
Protests engulfed
the capital and other major cities, threatening the
political stability that donors have long desired, but
have failed to nurture. With billions in foreign aid on
the table and Bill Clinton overseeing an international
effort at “building back better,” there was a lot on the
line: both money and credibility.
With Martelly’s
supporters leading large, and at times violent,
protests, the U.S. turned up the heat by publicly
questioning the results just hours after they were
announced. Within 24 hours, top State Department
officials were already discussing with Haitian private
sector groups plans to force Célestin out of the race.
“[P]rivate sector have told RP [René Préval] that
Célestin should withdraw … This is big,” then U.S.
Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten
wrote the
next day.
Merten wrote that he had personally contacted Martelly’s
“camp” and told them that he needed to “get on radio
telling people to not pillage. Peaceful demo OK: pillage
is not.” Unfortunately, much of Merten’s message, and
those in response, have been redacted.
Under Washington’s
pressure, the Haitian government eventually requested
that a mission from the Organization of American States
(OAS) come to Haiti to analyze the results. The mission,
despite not conducting a recount or any statistical
test, recommended replacing Célestin in the runoff with
Martelly. With the lowest turnout for a presidential
election in the hemisphere’s recent history, and at
least 12% of the votes simply missing, any decision on
who should be in a second round would be based on faulty
assumptions. (CEPR
analyzed all
the voter tally sheets
at the time, conducting a statistical analysis of the
vote, and later showed how
the OAS
recommendation
could not be
supported by
any statistical evidence.)
Nevertheless,
pressure began to mount on the Haitian government to
accept the OAS recommendations. Officials had their U.S.
visas revoked and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice
even went so far as to threaten to cut aid, even though
the country was still recovering from the devastating
earthquake earlier in the year.
In late January
2011, two months after the elections, but before any
decision had been made, Laura Graham
wrote to top
Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills,
warning that her boss, Bill Clinton [wjc] would be very
upset if certain visas were pulled: "There are rumors
abt ur second visa list and jmb [Prime Minister and
co-chair of the Clinton-led reconstruction commission,
Jean Max Bellerive] being on it. He's a conflicted guy
and is being pressured on both sides and we believe
trying to help. Wjc will be v unhappy if that's the
case. Nor do I think u need remove his visa. Not sure
what it gets u. Remove elizabeth's [Préval’s wife] and
prevals people. I'm also staying at his house fyi so
exposure in general and this weekend in particular for
wjc on this."
In response, Mills
questioned the “message it sends” for Graham to stay at
Bellerive’s house, but Graham replied, indicating a
certain coordination between the Clinton Foundation and
the State Department in influencing Haitian politics:
“For the record, I discussed staying at his house w both
u and wjc long ago and was told good strategic value and
I’ve [sic] stayed there every time.”
But being at
Bellerive’s house, with a decision on the election
coming any day, would send an inappropriate signal,
Mills pointed out. “Think of all the rumors you have
heard?” Mills asked, “that we want to pressure Célestin
out when that is Brazilian and UN position,” she added
as an example. There is no doubt that high-level
Brazilian and UN officials were involved in the decision
and efforts to exclude Célestin. Edmond Mulet, the head
of the UN military mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), even
privately
suggested
flying Préval out of the country
on election day. But it was the U.S. that funded the OAS
mission and that had been applying the most pressure on
the Haitian government, and
another
e-mail
from Graham to Mills a few days later confirms this. “I
think you need to consider a message and outreach
strategy to ensure that different elements of haitian
society (church leaders, business, etc) buy into the mms
solution and are out their [sic] on radio messaging why
its [sic] good.”
The “mms solution”
here surely refers to Mirlande Manigat and Michel
Martelly being placed in the second round over Célestin,
the scenario State Department officials and Haitian
private sector groups had been discussing since the day
after results were announced. “Seems to me IC
[international community] needs a complimentary [sic]
message-outreach strategy to support this solution,”
Graham added, noting that the U.S. government was being
made out as a “villain.”
A week earlier, a
separate
e-mail reveals,
the Haitian government had proposed cancelling the
elections, as many had been calling for, and running new
ones, but the plan was rejected by the EU and U.S.. The
international actors opted instead for the arbitrary
removal of Célestin and moving forward with the “MMs,”
two rightist political candidates who would support the
“Haiti is open for business” slogan that emerged after
the quake.
The e-mail from
Graham came just days before Hillary Clinton would fly
to Haiti, in the middle of the crisis in Egypt, to force
the government’s hand. Mills
forwarded
Graham’s message to Hillary Clinton,
with a note, “Let’s discuss this on the plane,” to which
Hillary responded simply: “Bill talked to me about this
and is quite worried about what I do and say tomorrow.”
“As we all are,”
Mills responded, passing along talking points for the
following day’s Haiti trip. “Ask him if he has any
thoughts,” Mills wrote, in reference to Bill Clinton.
The next day
Hillary Clinton traveled to Haiti and met with Préval.
“We tried to resist and did, until the visit of Hillary
Clinton. That was when Préval understood he had no way
out and accepted” it, Bellerive told me in an interview
last year. Martelly won in the second round, in which
just over 20% of the electorate voted.
But the hoped-for
political stability wouldn’t come so easy. After
Martelly’s first two choices for prime minister failed
to pass parliament, Garry Conille, who had previously
served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff when Clinton was
UN Special Envoy to Haiti, became prime minister in
September 2011.
E-mails
reveal
that Graham had been vetting potential prime minister
picks as early as June 2011 and had suggested Conille.
E-mails show
State Department staff helped to sway parliamentarians
on Conille, who was expected to be the partner that the
international community needed in the Haitian government
to help oversee the massive reconstruction underway. But
it didn’t work out that way.
After just five
months on the job, Conille resigned on Feb. 24, 2012.
Two days later, Laura Graham
wrote to
Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Jon Davidson.
In the e-mail, written while she said she was with
Conille, Graham expressed extreme frustration with
Martelly and pointed the finger clearly at him for the
resignation of Conille, who had begun investigating a
number of high-profile reconstruction contracts
involving Dominican firms. Graham also warned that the
U.S. must step up and act to rein in Martelly, or risk
the consequences, urging Bill Clinton to “convince” the
U.S. government: "GC [Conille] believes that his
resignation offers the IC [International Community] an
opportunity to join in the chorus (media, business,
civil society, parliament) of pressure on MM [Martelly].
He can no longer use GC as his obstacle. He has to act
and show he's for democracy or there needs to be
consequences. Waiting for this truck w[ith]o[ut] brakes
to hit the bottom of the hill will be too late. You can
be helpful in convincing USG and the IC."
Graham continued,
suggesting Bill Clinton go forward with his investor
trip to Haiti, but also use the time to pressure
Martelly. Graham was also concerned that the State
Department was going too easy on their new friend
Martelly, whom they had helped elect: "The U.S. has to
push here and I believe some at state, definitely Merten
[US Ambassador], are advising a wait and see attitude.
The situation cannot afford Washington to sit on
sidelines. They elected him and they need [sic] pressure
him. He can't go unchecked. Same thing with UN. Mariano
Fernandez [top UN military official at the time] needs
to act more like ‘mulet’ [UN official who helped oust
Célestin] than the quiet peaceful guy he is."
Graham, having been
in close communication with Mills and other high-level
State Department staff, as well as Bill Clinton, who, as
the e-mails clearly indicate, was kept well informed,
was certainly in a position to know just how influential
the U.S. intervention in the 2010 election was. “They
elected him,” is as clear as it gets, though given
previous e-mails, perhaps it would have been more
accurate to say “We elected him.” But it’s clear that
forcing her colleague Conille to resign had pushed
Graham.
“MM [Martelly]
wants GC [Conille] to leave the country,” she began
another email later that same evening. Conille’s “life
has and continues to be threatened by people associated
with” Martelly, Graham added, and that Martelly “said
himself he will do all it takes to take” Conille down.
Once again, Graham questioned Merten’s stance regarding
Martelly: "The U.S. – Cheryl [Mills] - promised him
American backed security immediately but when he met
with Merten yesterday Merten was not only in the mind
frame of 'well MM is not such a bad guy and he's better
than previous presidents' but he didn't discuss or offer
any security. Every day, GC life and reputation are at
risk. The U.S. and or the IC must go to MM and tell him
that nothing is to happen to GC, not even a tree
accidentally falling on him, or MM will face
consequences."
A few minutes later
Graham writes again, warning of Martelly’s efforts to
form armed militias throughout the country: "I now have
seen the actual intel from MINUSTAH [UN military force]
and the evidence of the armed militia training
throughout the country including evidence that the
palace is funding and supporting it. I'm meeting with
Mariano Fernandez tomorrow but GC shared with me this
intel last night and its obvious from the documents and
the pictures what is going on here."
“The evidence is
clear as day and they have already begun parading in the
streets with guns and chanting in carrefour (less than 1
hour from PaP [Port-au-Prince]) and other areas of the
country,” Graham adds.
Finally, an hour
later, Graham sends the last e-mail after viewing
Conille’s preliminary audit, which “details the amount
of corruption and the arrogance in they [sic] way they
did it.” Graham continues: "It is the contracts that MM
is saying he will come after GC with everything he's got
to prevent the real details (presumably including his
take) from coming out."
The next day, Oscar
Flores, a long-time Clinton aide, forwards all of the
messages to Mills and Hillary Clinton. “Pls print,”
Clinton responds.
But despite
Graham’s concerns and the apparent evidence of
corruption and armed militias, the U.S. continued to
stand by the Martelly administration. His term ended in
February 2016, and Graham’s e-mail on Martelly’s lack of
democratic credentials now reads especially prescient.
After no elections were held during his first four years
in office, Martelly began ruling by decree in January
2015. Presidential elections, held last fall, were so
marred by fraud and irregularities that they were
entirely scrapped (unlike the controversial elections in
2010), leaving Haiti without a democratically elected
president. Once again, the U.S. argued for accepting the
flawed elections and moving forward with a second round,
this time between Martelly’s hand-picked successor and
an old friend from 2010, Jude Célestin. But this time,
the U.S. didn’t get their way ― entirely new elections
are scheduled for this October.
The
original version of
this article was published on the Haiti Relief and
Reconstruction Watch blog of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research (CEPR).
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