Haiti: Disarmament Derailed

...onomic this ascension itself is a generator ing becau Id con- of disorder," he said...

...k voters for weapons during parliamentary ele government to his successor Ren6 Prdval in what history books will describe as Haiti's first democratic transfer of power, insecurity is more present than democracy...

...But the ensuing "soft invasion" scenario-coupled with the policy of political and economic reconciliation which Aristide agreed to espouse-prevented both invading U.S...

...We depend on the population to find out where large arms caches might be...

...Many fear the 5,000-plus members of the new police will end up simply being a stand-in for the 7,000 members of Haiti's former army...

...soldiers, which topped 20,000 at the height of the occupation, pulled out...

...Yet, in Haiti's provinces, where disputes with large landowners are still claiming the lives of many peasants, there is little sense of relief...

...government sought to destroy...

...It's still what you hear among the weak, those who have the least money, the least say in what is going on...

...Haitians think we have wrist watches that can literally see through walls," he said...

...80%" of Haitians (actualto 95%)-the ones that "the weak"-will not, be so easily cowed into on...

...We don't have this sort of gadgetry here...

...Justice Department agency that is in charge of recruiting and training Haiti's police, and whose track record includes the "professionalization" of the police in places such as Guatemala and El Salvador...

...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14 putting your own liberty in danger...

...Since toppling the dictatorship a decade ago, try's popular movement stubbornly holding out for patory democracy where p means more than tosslot into a box once in a d where freedom is not speech but includes shappolitical and economic one's society...

...two things: that the political a transition had a changes are inevitable, but that, on ing U.S...

...We chose to get the gu from our head first, and we their hands out of our pocke wards...

...I don't mind if my brother's not in the [Presidential] chair...

...On the eve of his election, Rend Pr6val acknowledged this rela- A tionship between the military and the economi "When we came back, we double problem," explained "We had the army, which w ported by many people who out the coup...

...where are coco-rats in the courtyard...

...tary coup precisely because they never let down their guard, these 30-plus activists are still highly cautious...

...Likewise, FRAPH and the attaches have lost the battle, but they have not lost the war...

...That's all one Those d those can keep now...

...What happened in this I see that ie eco- country is that you had 80% of the behind us al-mak- population which gained their citi- misery th ead the zenship status for the first time, but accepted...

...Far from counting on the international community to disarm Haiti's repressive forces, many in the popular movement blame them for exacerbating the problem...

...UN spokesperson Eric Falt ended his rosy evaluation of MINUHA by beaming that its motto is "to be useful every chance we get...

...We have to put our hands together because, friends we don't stand up and fight together, how are we going to survive...

...In November, 1995, President Aristide briefly took a stronger stance...

...They came here to protect the privileged sectors of Haitian society...

...A quick debate ensues over whether to fetch the police or to confront the stranger directly...

...Although the military mission, known here as MINtin in Haiti UHA, was originally scheduled to end this February, a skittish Ren6 Pr6val, fearing early attempts by right-wing forces to destabilize his government, negotiated a fourmonth extension at the reduced level of 1,900 soldiers and 300 police monitors...

...He turns out to be a policeman from a distant town who shrugs off the demands that he arrest his companion...

...Barricades were erected, homes of former soldiers and FRAPH members were searched, and dozens of weapons were retrieved...

...In the process, several properties were destroyed and seven people were killed-including at least one Gonaives resident who Roussibre from the Peace and Justice Commission and others claim was killed by Nepalese soldiers in the UN military mission...

...After the crowd lectures him on appropriate conduct if Haiti's new police force is to gain the support of the population, the two drive off...

...When asked about its usefulness in disarming Haiti's thugs, Falt replied that there was "a Civilians march with machetes and guns in the streets of Port-au-Prince in 1995...

...An armed contingent bounces by, rifles pointing skyward...

...troops two days after the U.S...

...As the mandate of the international troops winds down, Haitians are wary of what will occur when the "coco-rats"-the latest derogatory slang here for foreignersfinally clear out, leaving behind a U.S.-trained police force to maintain "law and order...

...He contends that with the umbilical cord that connected these elements to the ex-military now severed, they no longer pose a threat...

...Given such opinions, many grassroots activists are counting the days until the troops leave...

...Haitians hope that the police force can be reformed, because, as former major Toussaint puts it, "if we chase out the national police, what do we have left...

...The U.S...

...the ideological and economic reinforce 'as sup- fronts, they have the sympathy of forces an carried Big Brother, capitalism," Brahimi the current had a told Radio Haiti...

...I prefer to tell this 80% results, I special and their representatives in the pop- coming a ughout ular organizations that if the liberty our hea made you have gained is to be translated friends, it "The into blockades and burning tires, be fight togel d know careful...

...lot of confusion" around this issue...

...By having this economic power, they have many other powers as well which they can make use of when they wish...

...Once they go, disarmament will be carried out," said Rosita, a peasant organizer from the rice-growing Artibonite Valley in the center of Haiti, "because if I know a person has a weapon, we'll get together a group of people and we'll disarm him...

...An absolute success story," said U.S...

...government had planned to "professionalize" a smaller version of the army that they had created, armed, trained, infiltrated and controlled since their first occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934...

...According to human rights advocates like Daniel RoussiSre, the Belgian priest who heads the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Gonaives, the problem is not lack of information, but rather the absence of political will...

...As an inquisitive crowd gathers, the owner of the car and apparently the gun, comes out of a neighboring house...

...Some worry about their ineffectiveness against heavily armed paramilitary gangs, while others charge that they are actively protecting those thugs and using excessive force against unarmed protesters...

...But, if the foreigners are here, it'll be hard for us to do it...

...A man who had been asking suspicious questions and trying to gain access to the courtyard is now sitting in a car out front, cleaning and loading a gun...

...L6ogmne was practically taken over by the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) during the coup, and the region is still a bastion of armed right-wing thugs...

...There would have been nothing easier than to disarm the macoute-military system," said Roussibre, "because the UN Civilian Observers Mission was here [during the coup...

...It's normal, we understand, we sympathize, but there needs to be more education disseminated on the part of the government and the media...

...Aristide, however, outmaneuvered them by using a rebellion over pay issues to dismiss practically the entire officer corps...

...Aristide's policy of ciliation has encouraged th nomic elite...to engage in dea ing with the government," ri memo...

...You are in the process of survive...

...We lost three years, but we'll pull five years out of the asses of the coco-rats," sings the crowd, feeling vindicated that although Aristide wasn't permitted to make up his time lost in exile, his successor comes from the same Lavalas movement that the U.S...

...Periodically, a scuffle breaks out, and weapons are brandished...

...As a result, the ec elite's interest in stability ar tinued profits are being met.' Lakhdar Brahimi, UN representative to Haiti thro much of the occupation, much the same argument 20% [sic] who are privilege paramilitary attach is caught by civilians, beaten up, and handed ver to U.S...

...government and are counting on continuing tl cy of "reconciliation" to keep on Haiti's volatile political tion...

...soldiers themselves had all the information...

...At first, the man tries to hide the gun...

...Pr6val...

...The international community seems intent on making the country safe for capitalism, so that the local elite can continue making profits and the transnational corporations can take their cut...

...Having survived the 1991 mili- in June, 1995...

...The only U.S...

...One too often forgets in the Haitian analysis that there is a very, very deep link UPDATE / HAITI between the repressive power and the large families of the Haitian oligarchythe Mevs, the Acras-who fomented the coup...

...We understand that everywhere the UN goes, they leave behind a trail of complete destabilization," says Frantz, a young peasant organizer from Limonade in northern Haiti...

...General John Sheehan in February as the last U.S...

...Indeed, with casualties practically non-existent, and ugly SomaliaUPDATE / HAITI type clashes with the population kept to a minimum, the U.S.-led operation has helped the UN counter an image of impotence and given Bill Clinton a foreign-policy victory...

...structural" variety whose costs fall while, an the UN mostly heavily upon the poor...

...newspapers, and Aristide called the campaign to a halt...

...A year and a half into the U.S./UN military occupation of Haiti, the country is a ticking time bomb...

...Goman, far up into the s outside L6ogane, a 76peasant put it this way: ncourages me is that I nge is inevitable because the young ones coming are rebelling against this at we older folks always I got involved in organizse even though I may die without seeing any result, I owe it to those who are coming after me...

...who is who here, because some of those without uniforms have police IDs, while others in the chintzy "POLICE" T-shirts turn out not to be police at all...

...Many also believe that former military and paramilitary elements populate the ranks of the new police force...

...Haiti's military and paramilitary forces remain heavily armed, and ongoing impunity allows them to continue to repress and extort an unarmed population...

...The peasant organizers opt to do the latter...

...In the final analysis, what happens to the security situation here will be determined as much by money as by guns, given that Haiti's repressive forces have always been a tool of the local economic elite and their international allies...

...Instead of being scared, Haitians ought to realize that nobody will take anything away from them anymore," he counsels...

...Haiti's paramilitary and ex-military forces remain heavily armed, and ongoing impunity allows them to continue to repress and extort an unarmed population...

...About an hour after I've left, members of the new Haitian police force try to disarm a member of the Palace Guard...

...This army machine gun to our head, an people had their hands in ou et...

...In reality, the repression and extortion are growing, with violent acts in the capital increasing from an average of 75 a day to over 200, but this is now called "common crime...

...The occupation troops confiscated only 30,000 weapons, many of which were heavy artillery not used against the general population and arms of questionable operability garnered through a controversial "buy-back" program...

...From this perspective, security is defined as stability, and that requires keeping Haiti's poor majority in check...

...The passive and active resistance of Haiti's grassroots activists finally succeeded in pressuring the United States to return ousted President Aristide on October 15, 1994...

...Nothing would have been easier than to cull, quietly, those macoutes and soldiers who, for their part, were not particularly courageous individuals...

...Special Forces...

...The Haitian army has lost the battle, but it has not lost the war...

...In an angry response to the assassination of one legislative deputy and the wounding of a second from his Lavalas political movement, Aristide ordered the police to conduct disarmament sweeps and called upon the population to "give the police information, give the police support, give them a hand...

...They will reappear in one manner or another," predicts Roussibre of the Justice and Peace Commission...

...Although it may look three-dimensional from the perspective of international diplomats, Haiti's democratic popular movement sees it as little more than a manufactured illusion...

...Recent evidence of CIA infiltration of the corps unveiled by Nation journalist Allan Nairn, coupled with the growing incidence of its repressive behavior, have led human rights advocates to call for a case-by-case revision of all recruits...

...There has been much talk in both activist and government circles of the need for neighborhood vigilance UPDATE / HAITI brigades, but in practice the power of the population has rarely been tapped...

...The views expressed in this article are those of the author...

...You can't keep both ly closer r pock- the political power and the econom- Falt calls n away ic power...

...This was clearly expres September, 1995 internal mi the UN military mission unc by the news agency Int Service...

...For example, we can see that they came to Haiti to protect the Haitian military...

...They are still there, and they have all or most of the economic power in their hands...

...c elite...

...This is exactly what the coup was designed to do...

...soldiers and the Haitian people from truly reversing the balance of forces established at the time of the coup...

...But this "success" is holographic...

...invasion in 1994...

...Despite our repeated calls, we have had no serious information that could help us seize these large quantities of weapons...

...The limited to he poli- 1995 UN memo warned that ing the the lid increasing pressure from the popu- future of situa- lation for "populist economic poli- In Nan sed in a cies" could upset "the peaceful mountain emo of equilibrium...achieved to date...

...then, he claims to be a policeman himself but refuses to produce identification...

...Far from supporting n to democracy, the ensuoccupation has actually I the previous balance of d prepared the terrain for It low-intensity conflict...

...Iam attending a meeting of peasant organizers in L6oglne, a small town 30 miles west of Port-au-Prince, when the woman in charge of security alerts the group of a problem...

...Two are killed and 33 wounded in the ensuing gun battle...

...On this day in early February, three days before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will turn over the reins of Laurie Richardson divides her time between Haiti and the United States, supporting the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) and the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress (MPNKP...

...troops staying on are 200 to 400 "military engineers" who may, according to reports in the Village Voice last November, actually be undercover U.S...

...UN spokesperson Falt dismisses the fears of Haitians that the paramilitary squads have not been vanquished...

...Concerns regarding Haiti's new police grow daily...

...has been cities in The adjustments currently a particil doesn't planned for Haiti by the IMF and citizenship coming the World Bank are those of the ing a bal soon...

...and UN officials condemned the "mob violence," a spate of alarmist articles ran in U.S...

...You have to share, to per- however, '11 take haps lose the political power and submissi et after- accept that the economic power you Duvalier nd pri- hold will only be retained with the couni merged some adjustments...

...It's hard to tell just Many Haitians believe that former military and paramilitary elements have infiltrated the ranks of the new police force...

...The musical group Koudjay is belting out its smash hit, the sun is beginning to rise on the last day of Carnival, and I am in the crush of the crowd, fighting the oncoming current of revelers that threatens to tear me away from my companions...

...That's the tomorrow problem...

...When the recruitment was carried out, no one knows how they did it...

...In the eyes of many, Aristide's biggest-and, for some, his only-achievement was the dismemberment of the armed forces...

...U.S...

...They had all the names of the FRAPH, the attaches, the soldiers-and the U.S...

...year-old covered Brahimi, upon leaving Haiti in "What ei erPress February, issued his own stern know cha recon- warning...

...watch out...

...Yet as privatization a vate-sector relations have e' as President Pr6val's prior his first months in office, it appear that hands will be out of the pockets any time The U.S...

...As long as we want it to be done, as long as they give us the chance to do it, it'll be done...

...You will find within the police those who will respect the Constitution to the letter, but I am afraid that there are already infiltrators in the police who are pressuring them," said former army major Danny Toussaint, an Aristide loyalist who headed Haiti's interim police until it was phased out in early 1996...

...The "they" is ICITAP, the U.S...