Reply #8: I will have no problem with a scientific analysis -- by which I mean an analysis that is

[struggle4progress]

historically accurate, that explicitly examines the effect of specific material interests on policy, that notes the actual political tensions between different groups, and so on. The object of such an analysis is to clarify, in pragmatic terms, the actual forces at play, so that one is able to reason clearly about what is likely to happen and what pressures could actually be exerted to influence outcomes

At an entirely abstract level, it is quite plausible that the combined effect, of a long-term and single-minded promotion of self-interest by particular economic sectors, produces a crude foreign policy: one expects that a thousand filters exist, limiting (for example) who actually occupies critical decision-making positions in the political, military, and policy spheres -- and thus limiting what decisions are considered "reasonable". An abstract suspicion may suggest that we search for certain relationships, but it cannot substitute for the concrete knowledge obtained after actually seeking those details

A number of links follow, which I expect you will interpret as evidence of Clinton's bad intentions. My interpretation would be rather different: the covert action establishment operates with few real constraints; it has significant political power; it does pretty much as it pleases; and it thus poses a significant problem for our democracy and democracies elsewhere

CIA 'helped to set up terror group' in Haiti
RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington
Friday, 7 October 1994
According to an article in this week's issue of the liberal magazine Nation, FRAPH leader Emmanuel Constant was a former employee of the CIA. Largely at the CIA's wishes, the organisation was set up in 1993 to counter the pro-democracy movement backing Mr Aristide. In Port-au-Prince yesterday, a US embassy spokesman refused to comment on the allegations, which had already surfaced in less direct guise in a Haitian newspaper. Prompted by Mr Constant's press conference on Tuesday, arranged by the Americans just hours after US troops had sacked FRAPH's headquarters, Le Nouvelliste asked whether the US government was working 'hand-in-hand' with a man who had been one of the most feared and powerful in the country ... Despite demands from the Aristide camp, Mr Constant was not arrested when his group was broken up. The CIA's hostility to Mr Aristide has been in the public domain ever since the leak of an internal report suggesting he was mentally ill. The doctor said to have provided the evidence supporting that claim was later shown not to exist ... President Bill Clinton, meanwhile, moved to still public anxiety that Haiti would turn into a quagmire. Boarding an aircraft carrier at the Norfolk, Virginia, naval base yesterday, Mr Clinton told crew members that the mission would soon be turned over to the United Nations: 'We're going to complete it and bring our people home.' Congress, too, is pressing for an early withdrawal. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/cia-helped-to-set-up-terror-group-in-haiti-1441438.html

Arrest of FRAPH chief poses questions for U.S.
By Jim Lobe, IPS, 19 May 1995
WASHINGTON, May 12 (IPS) - ... Emmanuel Constant, head of the notorious Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), has reportedly enjoyed close ties to U.S. intelligence agencies which, many analysts believe, may have helped him escape from Haiti to the United States last December. Constant himself has claimed that the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) first recruited him as a paid agent in 1991 -- shortly after Aristide's ouster in a military coup -- and then encouraged him during the summer of 1993 to form FRAPH as a "balance (to) the Aristide movement" ... http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/071.html

The CIA and Haiti
New York Times Editorial, 8 December 1995
The performance of the Central Intelligence Agency in Haiti is a cautionary tale about what can happen when a spy organization loses sight of the clear line between providing neutral intelligence estimates and interfering with the execution of American foreign policy ... http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/187.html

HAITI UNDER THE GUN
by Allan Nairn
The Nation magazine, January 8 / 15, 1996
... Pieces of the story also come from Constant himself, who called me from his Maryland jail cell last September and again on December 7, shortly before he was due to be deported to Haiti. Constant, who has said that he started the group that became FRAPH at the urging of the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.) -- an account confirmed last year by a U.S. official who worked with him -- now says that even after the U.S. occupation got under way in September 1994, "other people from my organization were working with the D.I.A.," aiding in operations directed against "subversive activities." Constant claims that U.S. forces still use FRAPH members for "crowd control" and also "to understand the neighborhoods, what Lavalas is doing." Constant's assertion has been confirmed by U.S. officials involved in Haiti, who note that U.S. military intelligence and the C.I.A. are also continuing secret work with FRAPH ... http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Secrets_Lies/HaitiJan96_Nairn.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Secrets_Lies/HaitiJan96_Nairn.html

THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE RETURN OF THE FRAPH/FADH DOCUMENTS
by Brian Concannon
Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
... Although the US military was a factor in ending the dictatorship, the links between the dictatorship's criminals and US military, diplomatic and intelligence communities are both deep and widespread, as has been widely reported by the press, and acknowledged by both US officials and the criminals themselves. US troops arrived in Haiti in 1994, as part of the multinational force that ended the 3 year military dictatorship. They immediately and systematically gathered documents from the offices of military and paramilitary organisations, especially FADH and FRAPH. Approximately 160,000 pages of documents, as well as photographs, videocassettes and audiocassettes, were collected, and transported to the US. This was done without the knowledge or consent of Haiti, even though the documents were the property of Haiti under Haitian, international, and US law ... The government of Haiti has, since 1995, repeatedly requested the documents return. It has been joined by an impressive array of supporters: 68 members of the US Congress in 1995 and 1996, most major human rights organisations, numerous religious and solidarity groups in the US and abroad, at least three Nobel Peace Prize winners, the UN Human Rights Commission's Special Expert on Haiti, and MICIVIH, the UN/OAS human rights mission to Haiti. The response of the US has been to stonewall. For several months the government claimed that it could not find the documents. Then the US State Department proffered a series of reasons why it could not return the documents, none of them able to withstand scrutiny. In late 1995, the US, under pressure, announced it would return the documents to Haiti, and reportedly flew them down to its embassy in Port-au-Prince. Soon, however, the State Department demonstrated its intention to not return the documents, by placing conditions on the return that no sovereign nation would accept: the US would delete certain materials, according to its own whim, and Haiti would have to agree to use the documents only for specified purposes (that did not, for example, include exploring the already public links between US intelligence agents and the coup criminals). Most recently, on April 4,1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced at a press conference in Haiti that "All the documents have been returned to Haiti and offered to the Haitian government." I called the US Embassy on April 6 to confirm this, and was told that in fact all the documents were not in Haiti: originals of documents containing references to US citizens were still in Washington, and were not being offered to Haiti ... http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/concannon.html

President Aristide wants to bring FRAPH to justice
REVISED February 17, 2004
... Port-au-Prince - During a press conference held at Haiti's National Palace today regarding the humanitarian crisis caused by recent acts of terrorism, President Aristide revealed that the Government of Haiti may need to unveil the famous FRAPH documents. These documents and photos may be helpful in the pursuit of justice with regard to a criminal investigation underway involving FRAPH commander Louis-Jodel Chamblain, who emerged Friday as one of the terrorists in Gonaives. The terrorists are currently holding the approximately 150,000 residents of Gonaives hostage ... http://www.haitiaction.net/News/Expo/FRAPH1.html

Press Release
PRESIDENT ARISTIDE SAYS HAITI'S JUSTICE SYSTEM MIGHT USE FRAPH DOCUMENTS IN PURSUIT OF JUSTICE IN INVESTIGATION OF FRAPH LEADER, LOUIS-JODEL CHAMBLAIN
Port-au-Prince, Feb.16 2004 ... the FRAPH documents were handed over to the Government of Haiti in early 2000, with the condition that their use be limited to legitimate criminal investigations, as opposed to retribution. They have never been used in the investigation and prosecution of crimes to date. http://www.haiti.org/Whatsnew/new_press_release_021604.htm

February 19, 2004
History Repeating: Is A Coup Brewing in Haiti?
3uphaiti
... According to the Haitian newspaper Haiti-Progres, a man named Louis Jodel Chamblain arrived this week in the Haitian city of Gonaives-where the armed gangs are largely based. Chamblain is the former vice-president of the FRAPH paramilitary death squad. Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for life in trials for the April 23, 1994 Raboteau massacre and the September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist Antoine Izméry. Chamblain arrived in Gonaives last week with about 25 other commandos from the Dominican Republic, where he has been living since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage uniforms, and all-terrain vehicles.Since arriving in Haiti, Chamblain led the attack by about 15 opposition commandos against the Hinche police station on Haiti’s Central Plateau a few days ago on February 16. Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain’s leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on Oct. 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights “FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary.” Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living freely in the US-in fact he is believed to be living here in Queens, NY ... http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/19/history_repeating_is_a_coup_brewing

ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 16, 2004
Title: “Aristide Backers Left Out of Coalition”
Author: Ian James
... In 1990 after the brutal 15-year rule of dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, 70 percent of Haiti’s people voted for Aristide in their first democratic election. During his first term, Aristide began to make good on his populist platform, revising the tax code to require import fees and income based taxation on the rich and pressing for an increase in the minimum wage. He was, however, soon under pressure from International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to reverse these proposals. A few months later, Aristide was overthrown by the rebel paramilitary army known as the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH). FRAPH had been trained and sponsored by the CIA. In fact, several FRAPH leaders were on the CIA payroll. During the coup period, from 1991-1994, Aristide’s 1990 presidential opponent, former World Bank official Marc Bazin, was appointed Prime Minister by the military junta, and the exploitation and terrorization of the country continued as it had during the Duvalier period. Under Bazin 4,000 civilians were executed, and more than 60,000 refugees fled. It was in this context of CIA supported FRAPH killings that Bazin became a poster boy for World Bank, IMF, and Washington Consensus policies. With the help of the Clinton Administration, Aristide returned to his position as President of Haiti in 1994. His return was conditional, based on his support of IMF and World Bank proposals implemented during his years in exile. During that time, Haiti had racked up huge amounts of external debt and was forced to turn to the IMF and World Bank for loans. In response, the IMF formed the “Economic Recovery Program.” Supposedly intended to help Haiti get back on its feet, the program instead imposed a budget reform program that reduced the size of Haiti’s civil service and ultimately led to the collapse of Haiti’s state system. Aristide served until the end of his presidential term in 1996. Aristide was re-elected in Haiti’s 2000 presidential elections, the same year that George W. Bush entered office. Aristide won with 92 percent of the vote in an election declared free and fair by the Organization of American States, of which the U.S. is a member. However, shortly after Bush’s own tainted election, his administration questioned the election of seven senators from Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party. Despite the resignation of the senators, the Bush Administration used these inflated allegations to justify the withdrawal of $512 million in Inter-American Development Bank loans to Haiti. The Administration pressured the World Bank, the IMF, and the European Union to follow with reduction of other planned assistance ... http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/12-the-destabilization-of-haiti/