(The third of three articles)
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(The second of three articles)
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(The first of three articles)
While the secret U.S.
diplomatic cables given by Wikileaks to
Haïti Liberté
focus more on paramilitary leader, Senate candidate, and
“known drug trafficker” Guy Philippe, there are several
revealing references to former de facto Prime Minister
Evans Paul, alias K-Plim.
Ironically, today,
there are many calls that Evans Paul and other officials
of former President Michel Martelly should be prosecuted
for corruption and human rights crimes committed during
Martelly’s administration from May 2011 until February
2016. Paul has dismissed such calls as mere political
score-settling with no foundation.
On Jun. 1, 2016,
Port-au-Prince prosecutor Danton Léger put a travel ban
on Paul and 13 other Martelly officials so he could
investigate charges. The next day, Paul and 12 of the
officials issued a vehement note calling the measure
“arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic”
and a form of “political persecution.” Léger immediately
lifted the ban.
However, in May
2005, during the two year de facto regime that followed
the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d’état against former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young visited Haiti to
encourage “Haitians to put mercy and reconciliation
above the search for justice.”
“Young's message,
was straightforward,” wrote then U.S. Ambassador James
Foley in a
Jun. 3, 2005
cable about the
May 18-20 visit, organized by the U.S. Embassy and the
Haitian American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM). At the
time, Aristide’s former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and
Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert were sharing a hot,
small National Penitentiary jail cell (charges had still
not been formalized) and many other former Aristide
officials were in hiding or exile. “Haiti's continuing
problems, rooted in economic and social inequities,
cannot be solved if Haitians do not truly come together,
forgive, and agree to address them cooperatively and
non-violently. The challenge in Haiti, is to bring the
benefits of democracy and free enterprise to all people,
especially the poor. The most effective way to move
forward is not to search for justice and punish those
who have done wrong in the past, but to forgive and move
on.”
However, Evans
Paul, a leader of the U.S.-backed “Group of 184" civic
organizations that helped oust Aristide, did not agree
with Young’s “move on” message, so similar to Paul’s own
message today.
“KID [ Democratic
United Committee] leader (and Presidential candidate)
Evans Paul said that ‘forgiveness should go hand-in-hand
with the truth;...the page should be read first before
it is turned,’” Foley reported.
Paul’s position was
supported by author Yanick Lahens, another G-184
activist, and “echoed by other participants from the
anti-Aristide movement.”
In fact, Paul would
remain implacably hostile to the Lavalas party, even
after the Feb. 7, 2006 election that brought René Préval
to the presidency for the second time. For example, on
the fifth anniversary of the 2004 coup, “Alyans leader
Evans Paul tried to puncture the Lavalas legend
surrounding the end of Aristide's presidency by arguing
that his term ended not with a coup d'etat but rather
with the voluntary departure of the President after the
Haitian people lost all confidence in him,” U.S. Chargé
d'Affaires Thomas C. Tighe wrote in a
Mar. 3, 2009
cable.
Paul was bitter
after his pathetic showing in the 2006 election, where
he garnered only
2.49% of the vote.
This was despite Paul being the preferred candidate of
the de facto prime minister and his interior minister,
according the Charles Henri Baker, the #2 of the G-184
and a rival presidential candidate.
Baker “accused
Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and Interim
Interior Minister Paul Magloire of conspiring against
his candidacy to the benefit of Evans Paul, ‘their’
presidential candidate,” reported Chargé d'Affaires
Douglas M. Griffiths in an
Oct. 26,
2005 cable.
The Embassy also
had reports that there might be narco-money behind
K-Plim, and Griffiths “asked if Baker had received or
heard of offers of financial contributions from
narco-traffickers [to Paul’s campaign], and Baker
replied that he would leave that to the other
candidates” to answer, although he “stated that he had
ethical concerns about Alyans candidate Evans Paul.”
But the U.S.
Embassy had no doubt about the narco-links of Guy
Philippe, and nor did the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti
(MINUSTAH) or President René Préval.
For example,
Colonel Angel Cedres, the commander of Uruguay’s two
MINUSTAH battalions (known as URUBAT I) based in Haiti’s
Southern Department, told the U.S. Embassy that
“Narco-trafficking is the south's biggest problem,
particularly around the town of St. Louis du Sud,”
reported U.S. Ambassador Janet E. Sanderson in a
Nov. 29,
2007 secret cable.
“Colonel Cedres noted that although his troops are
making every effort to combat illegal
trafficking, the
drug runners often receive tips that MINUSTAH is en
route and quickly disappear. He specifically mentioned
that the presence of Guy Philippe's family in Les Cayes
posed difficulties for URUBAT I, and that Philippe's
local popularity makes it difficult to develop
information on his
whereabouts. Ambassador [Sanderson] assured Cedres that
the USG [U.S. government] shares his concerns about
narco-trafficking and is working closely with the GOH
[government of Haiti] to combat this problem.”
But Préval was very
dissatisfied with U.S. attempts to arrest Guy Philippe
on a drug-trafficking indictment brought against him in
Miami by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Préval “expressed
bafflement at why the U.S. had not arrested Guy
Philippe,” wrote Ambassador Sanderson in a
Jul. 8, 2008
confidential cable.
Préval complained to Sanderson that Philippe and his
associates “were ‘amateurs,’ not someone like (late
Colombian drug trafficker) Pablo Escobar. The U.S.
arresting them would send out a deterrent signal to the
drug trafficking world. Préval admitted that Philippe
had ties inside the police and was well-organized.”
Préval repeatedly
urged Washington to take action against Philippe, a
prodding which seems to have peeved Sanderson. In the
same cable she writes that Préval “gave his trademark
presentation that drug trafficking was the single
biggest obstacle to Haiti's development, and had to be
mastered before Haiti could move on other fronts.”
But six months
later, Sanderson was somewhat more sympathetic to the
President’s “anger over drug trafficker Guy Philippe.”
“Préval argues, and
we agree, that the flow of narcotics transiting Haiti
corrupts the political process and is undermining the
country's fragile democracy,” Sanderson wrote in a
Feb. 2, 2009
cable. “A
number of
politicians,
police, and judges are believed to be involved in, or
profiting from, drugs; Guy Philippe, indicted in the
U.S. for trafficking, is running for the Senate.”
However, Sanderson
admitted that the she and Préval “diverge on how best to
handle the problem,” with Préval calling “trafficking
‘an American problem.’”
“Preval dismisses
any suggestion that the GOH needs to develop its own
counternarcotics capacity,” Sanderson continued, and
“has demanded that significantly more USG resources be
devoted to drug interdiction, noting that we spend more
money on stopping illegal migrants from Haiti
sailing to the U.S. than we do to stop the flow of drugs
to Haiti.”
Agents of the
Haitian Anti-Drug Unit (BLTS) and the DEA made at least
two attempts to capture Guy Philippe and other “drug
fugitives” in the tiny seaside town of Pestel, one of
them on Mar. 25, 2008, Sanderson reported in an
Apr. 3, 2008
cable. But Guy
Philippe somehow managed to elude capture, and “has
given several radio interviews since the operation, and
has vowed that he intends to run for a senate seat.”
(Another series of joint BLTS-DEA operations were
conducted in June 2009, “during which Philippe again
narrowly escaped capture by fleeing on foot into the
hills,” said a
Jun. 23,
2009 cable.)
Philippe did indeed
try to run in the April 2009 Senate elections but the
Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) disqualified him for
his alleged drug-trafficking ties. In an
Apr. 8, 2009
cable,
Sanderson writes that “Préval saw Philippe as the most
threatening example of a drug lord trying to
buy his way into politics.”
But President
Martelly was a political ally of Guy Philippe, and
Martelly’s 2015 CEP changed the electoral law so that
Philippe would not be disqualified again. After
participating in the patently fraudulent Oct. 25, 2015
election as a candidate for the Nippes Department Senate
seat, Philippe now is set to compete in a run-off on
Oct. 9, 2016. Even as a candidate, Philippe
claims he
has immunity
from a Haitian government arrest warrant for his alleged
involvement in a deadly
May 16, 2016
attack on the
Les Cayes police headquarters. Haitian authorities also
believe Philippe is linked to a
spate of
murders and drive-by shootings
over the past three months.
But this is not the
first time Guy Philippe and his commandos have been
implicated in violent acts. On Apr. 3, 2008,
“demonstrators took to the streets of Lasavanne, a slum
located in Les Cayes, capital city of the South
Department to protest the high price of food,” wrote
Ambassador Sanderson in an
Apr. 22,
2008 cable.
“The Les Cayes demonstrations took a turn when rioters
aiming to free drug dealers being held in the Les Cayes
prison infiltrated the food protesters and turned
violent, targeting
MINUSTAH... Three
UN cars were burned and two houses
rented by UN personnel ransacked. A mob threatened the
hotel housing Senator Gabriel Fortuné, who publicly
echoed government statements that drug traffickers were
behind the violence,
and the politician had to be rescued by MINUSTAH. In the
fray, hotel security guard fatally shot one of the
attackers. MINUSTAH believes the Les Cayes violence was
orchestrated by elements close to drug traffickers,
perhaps including fugitive Guy Philippe.”
Then, on Feb. 18,
2009, “unknown perpetrators sacked a regional electoral
office of Pestel, in Grand'anse, according to a press
report,” Sanderson reported in a
Feb. 20,
2009 cable.
“The men claimed to be affiliated with the National
Front for Reconstruction (FRN), the political party of
rejected Senate candidate (and suspected drug
trafficker) Guy Philippe. They subsequently told the
media that carrying away the office furniture was their
way of reimbursing themselves for expenses incurred
supporting Philippe's campaign. Philippe's associates
were also rumored to be responsible for intermittent
roadblocks between the southern towns of Jérémie and Les
Cayes the week of Feb. 16.”
Philippe’s men did
not even spare anti-Lavalas politicians. “Jean Fritz
Laplanche, an OPL [Struggling People’s Organization]
candidate for the Grand'Anse Senate seat, was harassed
in the town of Pestel on Mar. 14 by supporters of Guy
Philippe, a suspected drug trafficker indicted in the
U.S., whose candidacy the CEP rejected,” Sanderson wrote
in a
Mar. 20,
2009 cable.
Laplanche “was at home when he heard chants that no
elections would occur in Pestel without Philippe's
participation. Laplanche reported that attackers then
ransacked his vehicle and stole money intended for his
campaign. He later sought refuge in a church.”
Today, the fears of
René Préval may soon come to pass. “Preval feared that
traffickers, including Guy Philippe, would finance
candidates in the next elections or seek election
themselves to obtain immunity from prosecution,”
Sanderson
wrote in
2008. “He said
there were several traffickers currently with seats in
parliament.”
Among others,
Préval was referring to one of Haiti’s most prominent
narco-Senators, Youri Latortue, who was recently
“reelected” in the fraud-plagued 2015 elections.
Latortue recently headed a Senate Commission
investigating government corruption, while U.S. Embassy
cables flagged him as a “drug dealer” and “poster-boy
for political corruption.”
In his book “Paramilitarism
and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti,”
researcher Jeb Sprague cites Canadian journalist Anthony
Fenton who wrote: “A source close to Haitian government
circles said, ‘Many people . . . have seen Guy Philippe
going in and out of Youri Latortue’s office....’ Others,
such as Joel Deeb, a Haitian-American arms dealer who
has reportedly brokered deals with Youri Latortue since
the Feb. 29, 2004 ouster of President Jean Bertrand
Aristide, called Youri Latortue [a] drug-smuggling
“Kingpin,” with “close ties” to paramilitary leader Guy
Philippe.”
Sprague reports in
his book that Guy Philippe met with Evans Paul and other
coup leaders on Feb. 29, 2004, the day Aristide was
ousted. Whether or not the two men are meeting again
today, they are clearly working in tandem to destabilize
the interim government of President Jocelerme Privert,
whom Evans Paul accuses of being “pro-Lavalas.”
The secret U.S. diplomatic cables unearthed by Wikileaks
provide a window into the history, motives, and tactics
of both Evans Paul and Guy Philippe, helping us to
better understand their long fight to foil the Haitian
people’s struggle for democracy and justice.
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