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Mother Jones - November/December 2004 Issue<br><br>
The Coup Connection<br><br>
By Joshua Kurlantzick<br><br>
In early 2004, chaos overwhelmed Haiti. In January, a rebellion
erupted<br>
against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former slum priest who
had<br>
frequently angered the United States with his leftist rhetoric.
Aristide<br>
had twice been elected, but he had alienated many Haitians with his<br>
increasing demagoguery and use of violence against the opposition.
Yet<br>
polls showed that Aristide remained relatively popular, so even<br>
experienced Haiti watchers were surprised when, in late February,
armed<br>
militias marched on the nation’s capital while demonstrators shut down
the<br>
streets. In the violence, some 100 Haitians were killed. At dawn on<br>
February 29, with the militias closing in, Aristide left Haiti on a
U.S.<br>
government plane.<br><br>
But did the rebellion really spring from nowhere? Maybe not.
Several<br>
leaders of the demonstrations -- some of whom also had links to the
armed<br>
rebels -- had been getting organizational help and training from a
U.S.<br>
government-financed organization. The group, the International
Republican<br>
Institute (IRI), is supposed to focus on nonpartisan, grassroots<br>
democratization efforts overseas. But in Haiti and other countries,
such<br>
as Venezuela and Cambodia, the institute -- which, though not
formally<br>
affiliated with the GOP, is run by prominent Republicans and staffed
by<br>
party insiders -- has increasingly sided with groups seeking the
overthrow<br>
of elected but flawed leaders who are disliked in Washington.<br><br>
In 2002 and 2003, IRI used funding from the U.S. Agency for
International<br>
Development (USAID) to organize numerous political training sessions
in<br>
the Dominican Republic and Miami for some 600 Haitian leaders.
Though<br>
IRI’s work is supposed to be nonpartisan -- it is official U.S. policy
not<br>
to interfere in foreign elections -- a former U.S. diplomat says<br>
organizers of the workshops selected only opponents of Aristide and<br>
attempted to mold them into a political force.<br><br>
The trainings were run by IRI’s Haiti program officer, Stanley Lucas,
the<br>
scion of a powerful Haitian family with long-standing animosity
toward<br>
Aristide -- Amnesty International says some family members participated
in<br>
a 1987 peasant massacre. “To have Lucas as your program officer sends
a<br>
message to archconservatives that you’re on their side,” says
Robert<br>
Maguire, a Haiti expert at Trinity College in Washington, D.C.<br><br>
IRI’s anti-Aristide focus appeared to have support from the Bush<br>
administration. The former U.S. diplomat in Haiti says Lucas was in<br>
constant contact with Roger Noriega, the administration’s top Latin<br>
America official, who had previously worked for Senator Jesse Helms
and<br>
had long sought to oust Aristide. Noriega and conservative
Republican<br>
congressional staffers kept in close touch with IRI-trained
opposition<br>
leaders and pushed for additional funding for IRI’s Haiti activities.
“The<br>
USAID director in Haiti was under enormous pressure [from Congress]
to<br>
fund IRI,” says the former diplomat.<br><br>
According to an internal report by the USAID inspector general obtained
by<br>
Mother Jones, in July 2002 the U.S. Embassy in Haiti protested that
IRI’s<br>
actions were undermining the official U.S. policy of working with
all<br>
sides in Haiti and that Lucas was spreading unsubstantiated rumors
about<br>
the U.S. ambassador. In response, USAID barred Lucas from running the
IRI<br>
program for 120 days. Lucas, according to several observers, threatened
to<br>
use Bush administration connections to have embassy officials fired.
He<br>
continued to essentially run the IRI Haiti program while serving as
a<br>
“translator,” in what IRI officials acknowledged was a violation of<br>
USAID’s ban, according to the inspector general’s report.<br><br>
In 2004, several of the people who had attended IRI trainings were<br>
influential in the toppling of Aristide. Among them, according to
Kim<br>
Ives, a journalist with the newspaper Haiti Progres, was André Apaid,
a<br>
conservative Haitian politician who had backed a previous
anti-Aristide<br>
coup in 1991. Apaid became one of the leaders of the Group of 184,
which<br>
organized the street demonstrations against Aristide.<br><br>
Other members of the group trained in the Dominican Republic were in
close<br>
contact with the thuggish armed opposition -- participating in
rebel<br>
meetings, serving as liaisons between the armed groups and foreign<br>
embassies, and negotiating for the militia leaders. Among them was
Paul<br>
Arcelin, a leading member of the opposition who had served as an<br>
ambassador under Haiti’s previous military junta. Arcelin told
Canadian<br>
reporters that he and other opposition leaders frequently met with
Guy<br>
Philippe, the leader of the armed rebels, to “prepare for
Aristide’s<br>
downfall.”<br><br>
When the uprising against Aristide began in late 2003, the White House
did<br>
little to stop it. In February 2004, as the militias were marching
on<br>
Port-au-Prince, President Bush issued a statement blaming Aristide for
the<br>
violence. In late February, the administration urged Aristide to
leave<br>
Haiti, and on February 29 he was flown into exile in the Central
African<br>
Republic on a U.S. plane dispatched by the Pentagon. Today,
conservative<br>
politicians and the military are reinstalling themselves in power,
Haiti<br>
experts report; the country’s infamous intelligence services are
being<br>
re-created, and violence against Aristide supporters is
commonplace.<br><br>
Haiti is not unique. In Venezuela, Cambodia, and other nations,
IRI—unlike<br>
other government-funded democratization groups—has increasingly focused
on<br>
training opposition parties intent on toppling elected governments.
The<br>
institute is one of several democracy-promotion groups financed by
USAID<br>
and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED); others include the<br>
National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the AFL-CIO’s international
wing.<br>
Under their bylaws, the groups are supposed to work with actors across
the<br>
political spectrum in democracies. In Haiti, for example, NDI, which
is<br>
controlled by Democrats, worked with members of Aristide’s party as
well<br>
as opposition parties, and was lauded for its grassroots
efforts.<br><br>
IRI, by contrast, has increasingly come under attack for choosing
sides.<br>
In Venezuela, the institute dramatically expanded its presence in 2001
and<br>
2002 as President Hugo Chavez ratcheted up his anti-U.S. rhetoric.
IRI’s<br>
Latin America program was led by Georges Fauriol, who had
previously<br>
worked at a conservative Washington think tank alongside Otto Reich,
who<br>
has been Bush’s closest adviser on Latin America policy. Reich, who<br>
according to Congress’ Government Accountability Office conducted<br>
“prohibited covert propaganda” on behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras in
the<br>
1980s, is a former ambassador to Venezuela who had frequently
denounced<br>
Chavez.<br><br>
In Venezuela, IRI staffed its program with Bush allies and campaign<br>
supporters; in turn, in 2001 the administration increased funding
for<br>
IRI’s activities in Venezuela sixfold, from $50,000 to $300,000 --
the<br>
largest grant any of NED’s democracy-promotion organizations received
that<br>
year.<br><br>
At the time, all the major U.S. democracy-promotion groups were active
in<br>
Venezuela, including both IRI and NDI. But documents obtained through
the<br>
Freedom of Information Act show that while NDI worked with parties
across<br>
the political spectrum, IRI staffers spent much of their time
cultivating<br>
the opposition. IRI worked closely with Acción Democrática, a group
that,<br>
IRI’s own documents acknowledge, “refused to recognize the legitimacy
of<br>
the Chavez presidency.” IRI also tutored opposition figures,
including<br>
Caracas mayor Alfredo Peña, an outspoken Chavez critic, on how to create
a<br>
political party. And despite a warning from the National Endowment
for<br>
Democracy not to take sides in Venezuela, IRI also used its own money
to<br>
bring opposition figures to Washington, where they met with top
U.S.<br>
officials.<br><br>
In April 2002, a group of military officers launched a coup against<br>
Chavez, and leaders of several parties trained by IRI joined the
junta.<br>
When news of the coup emerged, democracy-promotion groups in
Venezuela<br>
were holding a meeting to discuss ways of working together to avoid<br>
political violence; IRI representatives didn’t attend, saying that
they<br>
were drafting a statement on Chavez’s overthrow. On April 12, the<br>
institute’s Venezuela office released a statement praising the
“bravery”<br>
of the junta and “commending the patriotism of the Venezuelan
military.”<br><br>
That drew a sharply worded email from NED president Carl Gershman, a
copy<br>
of which was obtained by Mother Jones. Gershman wrote: “By welcoming
[the<br>
coup] -- indeed, without any apparent reservations—you
unnecessarily<br>
interjected IRI into the sensitive internal politics of
Venezuela.”<br><br>
At roughly the same time that IRI issued its statement, Reich
announced<br>
that Chavez had resigned -- though he had not -- and said the
United<br>
States would support the new government in Venezuela. But within a
day,<br>
Chavez was restored to power by popular demonstrations, the
presidential<br>
guard, and segments of the army. At least 40 people were killed in
the<br>
violence surrounding the coup.<br><br>
IRI’s selective approach to democracy-building has also been in
evidence<br>
in Cambodia, where it has thrown its support behind the Sam Rainsy
Party,<br>
an opposition group led by a former banker who is popular in
conservative<br>
Washington circles. Institute staff members have written speeches
and<br>
managed campaigns for Rainsy, according to several sources. “IRI
people<br>
were part of the [Rainsy] machine,” says one human rights expert
who<br>
focuses on Cambodia.<br><br>
Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, like Chavez and Aristide, is no
saint.<br>
He has been linked to political violence and has little respect for
civil<br>
liberties. “In some ways, IRI [is] leveling the playing field,” says
the<br>
Cambodia expert. Similarly, in Haiti, says another observer, there was
a<br>
legitimate need to help the opposition organize because Aristide
was<br>
becoming so abusive of his power.<br><br>
Yet IRI’s singular focus on groups seeking to overthrow leaders seen
as<br>
hostile to the United States can sometimes harm American diplomatic<br>
efforts. In Cambodia, notes one official with considerable experience
in<br>
the country, “it hurt the U.S. government’s credibility as an
honest<br>
broker in the election processes.” In Haiti, IRI has had a similar
impact,<br>
experts say, by unbalancing an already volatile situation and
causing<br>
people to wonder what the United States’ true agenda was. In 2003,
after<br>
being threatened by IRI’s Stanley Lucas, the departing U.S.
ambassador,<br>
Brian Dean Curran, gave a farewell speech to the Haitian chamber of<br>
commerce. “There are many in Haiti who prefer not to listen to me,”
he<br>
said, “but to their own friends in Washington—the sirens of
extremism.”<br>
Then he added, using the Haitian word for “thugs”: “I call them the<br>
chimères of Washington.”<br>
<br>
*<br>
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