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<font size=3>Published on <i>The Nation</i>
(<a href="http://www.thenation.com/">http://www.thenation.com</a>)<br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>WikiLeaks Haiti: Country's Elite Used Police
as Private Army</b></font></h1><font size=3>Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives |
June 22, 2011<br><br>
Haitian business organizations and members of the country's tiny elite
used the Haitian police force as their own private army in the wake of
the 2004 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to
a secret US Embassy cable.<br><br>
Then–US Ambassador to Haiti James Foley warned in the cable "against
private delivery of arms" to the Haitian National Police (HNP) after
learning from a prominent Haitian businessman that "some business
owners have already begun to purchase weapons and ammunition from the
street and distribute them to local police officials in exchange for
regular patrols."<br><br>
The May 27, 2005, report was in a trove of 1,918 cables that WikiLeaks
made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper <i>Haïti Liberté</i>,
which is
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161009/wikihaiti-nation-partners-haiti-liberte-release-secret-haiti-cables">
collaborating with </a><i>The
Nation</i>
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161009/wikihaiti-nation-partners-haiti-liberte-release-secret-haiti-cables">
on a series of reports</a> </font><font size=1>[1]</font><font size=3>
on US and UN policy toward the Caribbean country.<br><br>
Haiti's private sector elite has been a key US ally in promoting
Washington's agenda in the country, from free trade and privatization of
state enterprises to two coups against President Aristide followed by US
and UN military occupations.<br><br>
Fritz Mevs, a member of "one of Haiti's richest families and a
well-connected member of the private sector elite" with major
business interests in Port-au-Prince's downtown and port, was the
principal source for Foley's report.<br><br>
Mevs told the Embassy that the president of the Haitian Chamber of
Commerce, Reginald Boulos, had "distributed arms to the police and
had called on others to do so in order to provide cover to his own
actions." Boulos currently sits on the board of former President
Bill Clinton's Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which controls
the spending of billions donated to rebuild Haiti after the January 12,
2010, quake.<br><br>
The May 2005 cable describes the period after the February 29, 2004, coup
d'etat, which not only removed Aristide from power but repressed his
Fanmi Lavalas party, set up a US-backed de facto government, and ushered
in a 9,000-strong UN military occupation known as MINUSTAH (UN
Stabilization Mission in Haiti).<br><br>
De facto Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's interim government of Haiti and
his paramilitary allies had difficulty stabilizing their unpopular
regime, despite killing an estimated 3,000 people and jailing and purging
from government jobs hundreds of Lavalas militants and
sympathizers.<br><br>
The regime had particular trouble suppressing pro-Aristide strongholds
like the slum areas of Bel Air and Cite Soleil, which mounted a fierce
resistance to the coup and the occupation. The de facto government, US
Embassy and Haitian elite called the resistance fighters
"bandits" or "gangs," the terminology used in
the cable.<br><br>
Titled "Haitian Private Sector Panicked by Increasing
Violence," the cable relays Mevs' report to the Embassy's political
officer that Haitian "business leaders are exasperated by the lack
of security in the vital port and industrial zone areas of Port-au-Prince
and are allegedly arming local police with long-guns and ammunition in an
effort to ensure security for their businesses and
employees."<br><br>
Foley wrote that "Mevs says that of the roughly 150 business owners
in the area, probably 30 have already provided some kind of direct
assistance (including arms, ammunition, or other materiel) to the police,
and the rest are looking to do so soon."<br><br>
Mevs "defended the idea of the private sector arming the police in
general, but he lamented the haphazard manner in which many of his
colleagues seemed to be handing out weapons with little control,"
the cable says. Mevs also worried "that funneling the arms secretly
would only serve to reinforce rumors that the elite were creating private
armies," which in fact was happening.<br><br>
Mevs asked the Embassy if "the U.S. would oversee [a] program"
under which the private sector could legally buy the HNP's guns because
"he did not trust either MINUSTAH or the HNP to properly control the
issuance of weapons."<br><br>
The private army "rumor" was corroborated by "contacts of
the Econ Counselor [who] report from time to time of discussions among
private sector leaders to fund and arm their own private sector
armies."<br><br>
Security for businesses around the capital's industrial, warehouse and
port districts reportedly degenerated after the March 30, 2005, death of
Thomas Robenson, alias Labaniere, a onetime Lavalas leader in Cite
Soleil's Boston neighborhood. He defected to the forces defending the
2004 coup and provided armed protection to nearby commercial zones.
Labaniere was killed "allegedly in a plot directed by rival
pro-Lavalas gang leader Dread Wilme," Foley wrote.<br><br>
After that, the UN force had tried to secure the commercial areas but
"was proving to be a poor substitute for Labaniere," an adviser
to Cite Soleil's mayor told the Embassy, largely because "MINUSTAH
troops (who, he said, rarely set foot outside of their vehicles) were
unable to identify the bandits from amongst the general populace as
Labaniere had done."<br><br>
The residents of Cite Soleil did not view Emmanuel Wilmer (<i>aka</i>
Dred or Dread Wilme) as a "bandit." They saw him as a hero
defending them from pro-coup paramilitaries (who in 1994 burned many
houses in the rebellious shantytown) and UN occupation troops. Today, one
of the main boulevards through Cite Soleil is named after him, and murals
of his face adorn many walls.<br><br>
Wilme told the Lakou New York program on Brooklyn's Radio Pa Nou station
in April 2005 that "MINUSTAH has been shooting tear gas on the
people. There are children who have died from the gas and some people
inside churches have been shot.... The Red Cross is the only one helping
us. The MINUSTAH soldiers remain hidden in their tanks and just aim their
guns and shoot the people. They shoot people selling in the streets. They
shoot people just walking in the streets. They shoot people sitting and
selling in the marketplace."<br><br>
But for Foley and the Haitian elite, the UN military was not doing
enough. "According to Mevs, although MINUSTAH has on occasion parked
armored vehicles near the Terminal with some success, he said criminals
regularly force the tanks to move (by burning tires or fecal matter
nearby), and as soon as the vehicles depart, the rampage
continues."<br><br>
Foley asked the "Core Group" of international donors and the UN
military for a "swift, aggressive" response to the business
sector's call for action against the "criminal elements" from
slums like Cite Soleil.<br><br>
"Ambassador Foley warned the Core Group that MINUSTAH's stand-down
in Cite Soleil put the elections at risk, and that the insecurity around
the industrial zone risked undermining what is left of the Haitian
economy," said the cable.<br><br>
The UN mission chief Juan Gabriel Valdes "promised a more robust
response from MINUSTAH," which sat down with police leaders to
develop a plan in "coordination with the private sector," the
cable explains.<br><br>
"In response to embassy and private sector prodding, MINUSTAH is now
formulating a plan to protect the area," concluded the
cable.<br><br>
Weeks later, on July 6, 2005, at 3 am, 1,440 Brazilian and Jordanian
soldiers, backed by forty-one armored personnel carriers, sealed off Cite
Soleil and attacked. UN troops fired more than 22,000 bullets, leaving
dozens of civilian casualties, including women and children.<br><br>
"It remains unclear how aggressive MINUSTAH was, though 22,000
rounds is a large amount of ammunition to have killed only six
people" (the UN's official death toll), wrote Foley in a July 26,
2005, Embassy cable obtained by Professor Keith Yearman of the College of
DuPage through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The UN
claimed it had killed only "gang leader Dred Wilme and five of his
associates," the cable says, while noting, "at St. Joseph's
hospital near Cite Soleil, Doctors Without Borders reported receiving 26
gunshot victims from Cite Soleil on July 6, of whom 20 were women and at
least one was a child."<br><br>
By August 1, Foley was praising the Brazilians in another cable (obtained
by Yearman's FOIA requests), titled "Brazil Shows Backbone in Bel
Air." According to Foley, "the security situation in the
capital has clearly improved thanks to aggressive incursions in Bel Air
and the July 6 raid against Dread Wilme in Cite Soleil.... Post has
congratulated MINUSTAH and the Brazilian Battalion for the remarkable
success achieved in recent weeks."<br>
<hr>
<b>Source URL:</b>
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161596/wikileaks-haiti-countrys-elite-used-police-private-army">
http://www.thenation.com/article/161596/wikileaks-haiti-countrys-elite-used-police-private-army</a>
<br><br>
<b>Links:<br>
</b>[1]
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/161009/wikihaiti-nation-partners-haiti-liberte-release-secret-haiti-cables">
http://www.thenation.com/article/161009/wikihaiti-nation-partners-haiti-liberte-release-secret-haiti-cables</a>
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